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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



I2M0, ILLUSTRATED. PER VOi-., $1.50 



THE EARLIER VOLUMES ARE 

THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Jas. A. Harrison 

THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer 

THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baring-Gould 

THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 

THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. Vamb^ry 

THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Oilman 

THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jewett 

THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin 

THE STORY OF ANCIENT EGVPT. By Geo. Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof. J.P.Mahaffy 

THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Hon. Emily Lawless 

THE STORY OF THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley 

For prospectus of the series see end of this volume 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 



|he Htorg of the ||aliDns 



THE 



Story of Ireland 



The Hon. EMILY LAWLESS 

AUTHOR OF " HURRISH : A STUDY," ETC 



WITH SOME ADDITIONS BY 

Mrs. ARTHUR BRONSON 




NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN 

1888 



Copyright 

By G. p. Putnam's Sons 

1887 

Jiniered at Stationers' Hall, London ' 

By T. Fisher Unwin 



U 



Ai 



THE LIBRAR7 

OF CONGRESS 

WASHINOTOW 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 
New York 



The earl OF DUFFERIN, K.P., G.C.B., F.R.S., &c. 
Viceroy of India. 



Sgeul na H-Eireann 
PON Eireannach as fiu. 




PREFACE. 



Irish history is a long-, dark road, with many blind 
alleys, many sudden turnings, many unaccountably 
crooked portions ; a road which, if it has a few sign- 
posts to guide us, bristles with threatening notices, 
now upon the one side and now upon the other, the 
very ground underfoot being often full of unsuspected 
perils threatening to hurt the unwary. 

To the genuine explorer, flushed with justified self- 
confidence, well equipped for the journey, and in- 
different to scratches or bruises, one may suppose 
this to be rather an allurement than otherwise, as 
he spurs along, lance at rest, and sword on side. To 
the less well-equipped traveller, who has no pretensions 
to the name of explorer at all, no particular courage 
to boast of, and whose only ambition is to make the 
way a little plainer for some one travelling along it for 
the first time, it is decidedly a serious impediment, so 
much so as almost to scare such a one from attempting 
the role of guide even in the slightest and least 
responsible capacity. 



X PREFACE. 

• Another and perhaps even more formidable ob- 
jection occurs. A history beset with such distracting 
problems, bristling with such thorny controversies, a 
history, above all, which has so much bearing upon 
that portion of history which has still to be born, 
ought, it may be said, to be approached in the gravest 
' and most authoritative fashion possible, or else not 
approached at all; This is too true, and that so 
slight a summary as this can put forward no claim 
to authority of any sort is evident enough. National 
"stories," however, no less than histories, gain a 
gravity, it must be remembered, and even at times a. 
solemnity from their subject apart altogether from 
their treatment. A good reader will read a great 
deal more into them than the mere bald words con- 
vey. The lights and shadows of a great or a tragic 
past play over their easy surface, giving it a depth 
and solidity to which it could otherwise lay no claim. 
If the present attempt disposes any one to study 
at first hand one of the strangest and most perplexing 
chapters of human history and national destiny, its 
author for one will be more than content. 




CONTENTS. 



Primeval Ireland 



PAGE 

T-I2 



Early migrations, i — The great ice age, 3 — Northern character 
of the fauna and flora of Ireland, 5 — First inhabitants, 6 — 
Formorian, Firboigs, Tuatha-da-Danaans, 6 — Battle of Moy- 
tura Cong, 7-9 — The Scoto-Celtic invasion, 9 — Annals and 
annalists, how far credible? 9-12. 



II. 



The Legends and Legend-Makers 



T3-21 



The legends, 13 — Their archaic character, 14 — The pursuit of 
GillaDacker and his horse, 14-18 — -The ollamhs, 19 — Positions 
of the bards or ollamhs in Primitive Ireland, 19-21. 



III. 



Pre-Christian Ireland 



22-31 



Early Celtic law, 24 — The Senchus Mor and Book of Aicill, 
2S^Laws of inheritance, 26-28 — Narrow conception of 
patriotism, 30-31. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IV. 

St. Patrick the Missionary .... 32-37 

St. Patrick's birth, 33 — Capture, slavery, and escape, 33 — His 
return to Ireland, 33 — Arrives at Tara, 34 — Visits Connaught 
and Ulster, 34, 35 — Early Irish missionaries and their enthu- 
siasm for the work, 35-37. 

V. 
The First Irish Monasteries . . . 38-41 

" The Tribes of the Saints," 38 — Small oratories in the West, 
39, 40 — Plan of monastic life, 40 — Ready acceptance of 
Christianity, 41. 

VI. 

COLUMBA AND THE WESTERN ChURCH . . 42-49 

Birth of Columba, 42 — His journey to lona, 42 — His 
character and humanity, 43 — Conversion of Saxon England, 
44 — Schism between Western Church and Papacy, 45 — Synod 
of Whitby, 46 — The Irish Church at home, 47-49. 

VII. 
The Northern Scourge 5o-59 

Ireland divided into five kingdoms, 50 — The Ard-Reagh, 52 — 
Arrival of Vikings, 53 — Thorgist or Turgesius? 55 — Later 
Viking invaders, 56 — The round towers, 56-58 — Dublin 
founded, 58 — Hatred between the two races, 59. 

VIII. 
Brian of the Tribute ..... 60-70 

Two deliverers, 60 — Defeat of the Vikings at Sulcost, 61 — 
Brian becomes king of Munster, 63 — Seizes Cashel, 63^0ver- 
comes Malachy, 63 — Becomes king of Ireland, 64 — Celtic 
theory of loyalty, 64 — Fresh Viking invasion, 66 — Battle of 
Clontarf, 67-69 — Death of Brian Boru, 69. 



CONTENTS. XIH 

PAGE 

IX. 
From Brian to Strongbow . . . . 71-75 

Result of Brian Boru's death, 71 — Chaos returns, 71 — Struggle 
for the succession, 73 — Roderick O'Connor, last native king 
of Ireland, 75. 

X. 

The Anglo-Norman Invasion .... 76-89 

First group of knightly invaders, 76 — Their relationship, 76 — 
Giraldus Cambrensis, 78 — Motives for invasion, 79 — Papal 
sanction, 81 — Dermot McMurrough, 81 — He enlists recruits, 
82 — Arrival of Robert FitzStephen, 83 — Wexford, Ossory, 
and Kilkenny captured, 84-86 — Arrival of Strongbow, 86 — ■ 
Struggle with Hasculj^h the Dane and John the Mad, 87 — 
Danes defeated, 87 — Dublin besieged, 88 — Strongbow defeats 
Roderick O'Connor, goes to Wexford, and embarks at Water- 
ford, 88— Meets the king, 88— Arrival of Henry II., 89. 

XI. 
Henry II. in Ireland . . . . o 90-92 

Large military forces of Heniy, 90 — The chiefs submit and do 
homage, 90, 91 — Irish theory of Ard-Reagh or Over-Lord, 91 
— Henry in Dublin, 92 — Synod at Cashel, 92 — Henry recalled 
to England, 92. 

XII. 

Effects of the Anglo-Norman Invasion , 93-97 

Effect of Henry's stay in Ireland, 93 — His large schemes, 94 — 
Their practical failure, 95 — Rapacity of adventurers, 96 — Con- 
trast between Irish and their conquerors, 96 — Civil war from 
the outset, 96-97. 

XIIL 

John in Ireland ...... 98-100 

John's first visit, 98 — His insolence and misconduct, 98— Re- 
called in disgrace, 98 — Second visit as king, 99 — His energy, 
99 — Overruns Meath and Ulster, 99 — Returns to England, 
99 — Effect of his visit, 100. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
XIV. 

The Lords Palatine 101-106 

The Geraldines, loi — Their possessions in Ireland, 102 — The 
five palatinates, 103 — The heirs of Strongbow, 103 — The 
De Burghs, 104 — The Butlers, 105 — Importance of the great 
territorial owners in Ireland, 105, 106. 

XV. 

Edward Bruce in Ireland .... 1 07-1 12 

Want of landmarks in Irish history, 107 — Edward the I.'s 
reign, 107 — Battle of Bannockburn, 108— Its effect on Ireland, 
108 — Scotch invasion under Edward Bruce, 108 — Ravages 
and famine caused by him, 109 — The colonists regain courage : 
Battle of Dundalk, no — Edward Bruce killed, no — Result 
of the Scotch invasion, ill, 112. 

XVI. 
The Statute of Kilkenny .... 11 3-1 18 

Reign of Edward III., 113 — A lost opportunity, 114 — Duke 
of Clarence sent to Ireland, 114 — Parliament at Kilkenny, 
115— Statute of Kilkenny, 115 — Its objects, 116 — Two Ire- 
lands, 116 — Weakness resorts to cruelty, 117 — Effects of the 
statute, 118. 

XVII. 
Richard II. in Ireland 1 19-124 

Richard the II. 's two visits to Ireland, 119— Utter dis- 
organization of the country, 119-120 — The chieftains submit 
and come in, 120 — "Sir Art" McMurrough, 120 — Richard 
leaves, and Art McMurrough breaks out again, 121 — Earl of 
March killed, 12 1 — Richard returns, 122 — Attacks Art 
McMurrough, 122 — Failure of attack, 122 — Recalled to Eng- 
land, 123 — His defeat and death, 123 — Confusion redoubles, 
124. 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

XVIII, 
The Deebest Depths 1 25-131 

Monotony of Irish history, 125 — State of Ireland during the 
Wars of the Roses, 126 — Pillage, carnage, and rapine, 126, 
127 — The seaport towns, 128 — Richard Duke of York in 
Ireland, 128 — His conciliatory policy, 129 — Battle of To wton, 
129 — The Kildares grow in power, 130 — Geroit Mor, 130 — 
His character, 131. 

XIX. 

The Kildares in the Ascendant . . 132-143 

Effect of the battle of Bos worth, 132 — Kildare still in power, 
132 — Lambert Simnel in Ireland, i32^^Crowned in Dublin, 
134 — Battle of Stoke, 135— Henry VII. pardons the rebels, 
135 — ^Irish peers summoned to Court, 136 — Perkin Warbeck 
in Ireland, 137 — Quarrels between the Kildares and Ormonds, 
138— Sir Edward Poynings, 138 — Kildare's trial and acquital, 
140 — Restored to power, 141 — Battle of Knocktow, 142, 143. 

XX. 
Fall of the House of Kildare . . . 144-150 

Rise of Wolsey to power, 144 — Resolves to destroy the 
Geraldines, 144 — Geroit Mor succeeded by his son, 145 — Earl 
of Surrey sent as viceroy, 145 — Kildare restored to power, 146 
— Summoned to London and imprisoned, 146— Again restored 
and again imprisoned, 147 — Situation changed, 147 — Revolt 
of Silken Thomas, 147 — Seizes Dublin, 148 — Archbishop 
Allen murdered, 148 — Sir William Skeffington to Ireland, 148 
— Kildare dies in prison, 149 — "The Pardon of Maynooth," 
149 — Silken Thomas surrenders, and is executed, 150. 

XXI. 

The Act of Supremacy 1 51-15 5 

Lord Leonard Grey deputy, 151 — Accused of treason, re- 
called and executed, 152 — Act of Supremacy proposed, 152 — 
Opposition of clergy, 152 — Suppression of the abbeys, 153 — 



xvr CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Great Parliament summoned in Dublin, 153 — Meeting of 
hereditary enemies, 154 — Conciliatory measures, 154 — Henry 
VIII. proclaimed king of Ireland and head of the Church, 155. 

XXII. 
'The New Departure 156-160 

A halcyon period, 156 — O'Neill, O'Brien, and Macwilliam 
of Clanricarde at Greenwich, 157 — Receive their peerages, 
157 — Attempt at establishing Protestantism in Ireland, 158— 
Vehemently resisted, 158 — The destruction of the relics, 159 — 
Archbishop Dowdal, 159 — The effect of the new departure, 
159 — The Irish problem receives fresh complications, 160. 

XXIII. 
The First Plantations 1 61-163 

Mary becomes queen, 161 — Religious struggle postponed, 161 
— Fercal Leix and Offaly colonized, 162 — Sense of insecurity 
awakened, 162 — No Irish Protestant martyrs, 163 — Commis- 
sion of Dean Cole, 163 — Its failure, 163 — Death of Mary, 163. 

XXIV. 
Wars against Shane O'Neill . . . 164-173 

Elizabeth becomes queen, 164 — Effect of change on- Ireland, 
165 — Shane O'Neill, 165 — His description, habits, qualities, 
166 — His campaign against Sussex, 167 — Defeats Sussex, 167 — 
His visit to Court, 168 — Returns to Ireland, 169 — Supreme in 
the North, 169 — His attack on the Scots, 170 — Sir Henry 
Sidney marches into Ulster, 171 — The disaster at Derry, 171 
— Shane encounters the O'Donnells, 172 — Is defeated, 172 — 
Applies to the Scots, 172 — Is slain, 173. 

XXV. 
Between two Storms : . = . . 174-180 

Sir Henry Sidney Lord-deputy, 174 — A lull, 174 — Sidney's 
policy and proceedings, 1 76 —Provincial presidents appointed, 



CONTENTS. Xvii 

PAGE 

176 — Arrest of Desmond, 177 — Sir Peter Carew, 178 — His 
violence, 178 — Rebellion in the South, 178 — Sir James Fitz- 
maurice, 179 — Relations between him and Sir John Perrot, 
179 — He surrenders, and sails for France, i8o. 



XXVI. 
The Desmond Rebellion .... 181-192 

An abortive tragedy, 181 — State of the Desmond Palatinate, 
183 — Sir James Fitzmaurice in France and Spain, 183— Nicholas 
Saunders appointed legate, 184 — Stukeley's expedition, 184 
— Fitzmaurice lands in Kerry, 184 — Desmond vacillates, 185 
— Death of Sir James Fitzmaurice, 187 — Concerted attack of 
Ormond and Pelham, 188— Horrible destruction of life, 188 
— Arrival of Spaniards at Smerwick, 189 — Lord Grey de 
Wilton, 189 — -Defeat of English troops at Glenmalure, 190 
— Attack of and slaughter of Spaniards at Smerwick, 190 — ■ 
Wholesale executions, 191 — Death of the Earl of Desmond and 
extinction of his house, 192. 

XXVII. 

Between two more Storms .... 193-202 

State of Munster, 193 — The new plantations, 194 — Perrot's 
administration, 195 — ^Tyrlough Luinagh, 195— Sir William 
Fitzwilliam, 197 — Executions without trial, 198— Alarm of 
nortliern proprietors, 198 — Earl of Tyrone, 199 — Character 
of early loyalty, 200 — Causes of dissatisfaction, 201 — Quarrel 
with Bagnall, 201 — Preparations for a rising, 201, 202. 

XXVIII. 

Battle of the Yellow Ford . . . 203-205 

The Northern Black water, 203 — Attack of Blackwater Fort 
by Tyrone, 203 — Death of the deputy. Lord Borough, 203 — 
Bagnall advances from Dublin, 204 — Battle of the Yellow 
Ford, 205— Defeat and death of Bagnall, 205— Retreat of the 
English troops, 205 — The rising becomes general, 205. 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXIX. 
The Essex Failure 206-210 

Essex appointed Lord- Lieutenant, 206 — Arrival in Ireland, 
208 — Mistakes and disasters, 208 — Death of Sir Conyers Clif- 
ford in the Curlews, 209 — Essex advances north, 209 — Holds 
a conference with Tyrone, 209 — Agrees to an armistice, 209 — 
Anger of the Queen, 210 — Essex suddenly leaves Ireland, 210. 

XXX. 

End of the Tyrone War . . . . 21 1-2 19 

Mountjoy appointed deputy, 211 — Contrast between him and 
Essex, 213 — Reasons for Mountjoy's greater success, 213 — 
Conquest by starvation, 214 — Success of method, 214 — 
Arrival of Spanish forces at Kinsale : Mountjoy and Carew 
marched south and invests Kinsale, 215 — Attack of Mountjoy 
by Tyrone, 218 — Failure of attack, 218 — Surrender of 
Spaniards, 218 — Surrender of Tyrone, 219. 

XXXI. 

The Flight of the Earls . . . . 220-225 

The last chieftain rising against England, 220 — Condition of 
affairs at close of war, 221 — Tyrone's position impossible, 
221 — Reported plot, 222 — Tyrone and Tyrconnel take flight, 
222 — Confiscation of their territory, 223 — Sir John Davis, 224 
— The Ulster Settlement, 224, 225. 

XXXIL 

The First Contested Election . . . 226-228 

Parliament summoned, 226 — ^Anxiety of government to secure 
a Protestant majority, 226 — Contested election, 227 — Narrow 
Protestant majority, 227 — Furious quarrel over election of 
Speaker, 228 — Parliament dissolved, 228 — The king appealed 
to, 228 — Attainder of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, 228 — Reversal of 
statute of Kilkenny, 228. 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAGE 

XXXIII. 

Old and New Owners ..... 229-231 

Further plantations, 229 — The Connaught landowners, 230 — ■ 
Their positions, 231 — Charles I.'s accession and how it 
affected Ireland, 231 — Lord Falkland appointed viceroy, 231 
— Succeeded by Wentworth, 231. 

XXXIV. 
Strafford . . , . ... 232-239 

Arrival of Wentworth in Ireland, 232 — His methods and 
theory, 232 — Dissolves parliament, 234 — Goes to Connaught, 
234 — Galway jury fined and imprisoned, 230 — His eccle- 
siastical policy, 237 — His Irish army, 238 — Return to England, 
238 — Attainder, trial, and death, 239. 

XXXV. 

'Forty-one 240-245 

Confasion and disorder, 240 — Strafford's army disbanded, but 
still in the country, 241 — Plot to seize Dublin Castle, 241 — 
Plot transpires, 242 — Sir Phelim O'Neill seizes Charlemont, 
243 — Attack upon the Protestant settlers, 243 — Barbarities 
and counter barbarities, 244. 

XXXVI. 
The Waters Spread 246-250 

The rising at first local, 246 — Attitude of the Pale gentry, 249 
— They resolve to join the rising, 247 — Disorganization of 
the northern insurgents, 248 — Incapacity of Sir Phelim O'Neill, 
248 — Arrival of Owen Roe O'Neill and Preston, 249 — Meeting 
of delegates at Kilkenny, 249 — Charles decides upon a coup 
de main, 250. 

XXXVII. 
Civil War 251-256 

Effect of the Ulster massacres on England, 251 — An agrarian 
rather than religious rising, 252 — 1 he Confederates' terms. 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

253— Glamorgan sent to Ireland, 254— The secret treaty 
transpires, 254 — Arrival of Riniicini, 255 — Battle of Benturb, 
255 — Ormond surrenders Dublin to the Parliament, 256. 



XXXVIII. 
The Confusion Deepens. . . . . 257-260 

Total confusion of aims and parties, 258 — The " poor 
Panther" Inchiquin, 258 — Alliance between Jones and Owen 
Roe O'Neill, 259 — Ormond advances upon Dublin, 259 — 
Battle of Baggotrath and defeat of the Royalists, 260 — 
Arrival of Cromwell, 260. 

XXXIX. 
Cromwell in Ireland ...... 261-265 

Cromwell's mission, 261 — Assault of Drogheda, and slaughter 
of its garrison, 261 — Wexford garrison slaughtered, 262 — 
Cromwell's discipline, 263 — The " country sickness," 263 — 
Confusion in the Royalist camp, 264 — Signature of the Scotch 
covenant by the king, 284 — Fmal surrender of O'Neill and the 
Irish army, 265. 

XL. 

Cromwell's Methods ..... 266-272 

Loss of life during the eight years of war, 266 — Punishment 
of the vanquished, 267 — Executions, 267 — Wholesale scheme 
of eviction, 268 — The New Owners, 269 — ".The Burren," 270 
— Sale of women to the West Indian plantations, 270 — Dis- 
satisfaction amongst the soldiers and debenture holders, 271 — 
Irish Cromwellians, 272. 

XLI. 

The Act of Settlement. .... 273-276 

The Restoration, 273 — Henry Cromwell, 273 — Coote and 
Broghill, 273 — Court of claims established in Dublin, 275 — 
Prolonged dispute, 276 — Final settlement, 276 — Condition of 
Irish Roman Catholics at close of the struggle, 276. 



CONTENTS. XXI 

PAGE 

XLII. 

Oppression and Counter Oppression . . 277-283 

Effects of the Restoration upon the Ulster Presbyterians, 277 — 
A new Act of Uniformity, 277 — Exodus of Presbyterians from 
Ireland, 27S — The Popish plot, 279 — Insane panic, 279 — 
Execution of Archbishop Plunkett, 279 — Sudden reversal of 
the tide, 280 — Tyrconnel sent as viceroy, 280 — Terror of 
Protestant settlers, 281 — William of Orange in England, 282 
— ^James II. arrives in Ireland, 283. 

XLIII. 

William and James in Ireland . . . 284-294 

Popular enthusiasm for James, 284 — Struggle between his 
English and Irish adherents, 285 — James advances to London- 
derry, 285 — Siege of Londonderry, 286 — Its garrison relieved, 
286 — Debasing the coinage, 286 — Reversal of the Act of 
Settlement, 287— Bill of Attainder, 287— Arrival of William 
III., 288 — Battle of the Boyne, 2S9— Flight of James, 289— 
First siege of Limerick, 291 — Athlone captured by Ginkel, 
292 — Battle of Aughrim, 293, 294. 

XLIV. 
The Treaty of Limerick .... 295-298 

Sarsfield refuses to surrender, 295 — Second siege of Limerick, 
295 — The Limerick treaty, 296 — Its exact purport, 296 — The 
military treaty, 297 — Departure of the exiles, 298.. 

XLV. 
The Penal Code ...... 299-306 

A new century and new fortunes, 299 — Mr. Lecky's " Eigh- 
teenth Century," 300 — Reversal of all the recent Acts, 300 — 
The Penal Code, 301 — Burke's description of it, 302 — How 
evaded, 303 — Its effects upon Protestants and Catholics, 
304-306. 

XLVI. 

The Commercial Code .... 307-310 

The "Protestant Ascendency," 307 — England's jealousy of 



XXll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

her Colonists, 308 — Act passed prohibiting export of Irish 
woollen goods, 309 — Effects of the Act upon Ireland, 309 — 
Smuggling on an immense scale, 309 — Collapse of industry, 
310— Strained relations, 310. 

XLVII. 

MOLYNEUX AND SwiFT . . ' . . 3II-319 

The "Ingenious Molyneux," 311— Irish naturalists, 312 — 
Molyneux's " Case of Ireland," 313 — Effect of its publication, 
315 — Death of Molyneux, 315 — Dean Swift, 315 — His posi- 
tion in Irish politics, 315 — The " Drapier Letters," 317 — 
Their line of attack, 318 — Effect on popular opinion, 318 — 
Wood's halfpence suspended, 318. 

XLVIII. 

Henry Flood ...... 320-327 

Forty dull years, 320 — Parliamentary abuses, 322 — Charles 
Lucas, 322 — Flood enters Parliament, 323 — His struggle with 
the Government, 325 — ^Lord Townsend recalled, 325 — Flood 
accepts office, 326 — Effect of that acceptance, 326 — Rejoins 
the Liberal side, 326 — Tries to outbid Grattan, 326 — Failure 
and end, 327, 

XLIX. 

Henry Grattan . . . . . 328-333 

Unanimity of opinion about Grattan, 328 — His character, 328 
— Enters Parliament, 330— The "Declaration of Rights," 
330 — Carried by the Irish Parliament, 330 — Declaratory Act 
of George I. repealed, 331 — A spell of prosperity, 331 — Rocks 
ahead, 332 — Disaster following disaster, 332 — Grattan and the 
Union, 332 — Grattan's death, 333. 



The Irish Volunteers - . . . 334-340 

Revolt of the American Colonies, 334 — Its effect on Ireland, 
334 — Disastrous condition of the country, 335 — -Volunteer 
movement begun in Belfast, 336 — Rapid popularity, 336 — Its 
effect upon politics, 338 — Free Trade, 338 — Declaratory Act 
repealed, 338 — The Volunteers disband, 340. 



CONTENTS. xxill 

PAGE 

LI. 

Danger Signals 341-346 

Reform the crying necessity of the hour, 341 — Corruption 
steadily increasing, 341 — Attempt to obtain free importation 
of goods to England, 342 — Its failure, 342 — Disturbed state of 
the country, 344 — Its causes, 344 — "White boys," "Oak 
boys," and "Steel boys," 344, 345 — Faction war in the North, 
345 — Orange lodges, 345—" Society of United Irishmen," 346 
— The one hope for the future, 346. 

LII. 

The Fitzwilliam Disappointment . . 347-353 

General desire for Catholic Emancipation, 347 — Lord Shef- 
field's evidence, 347 — The Catholic delegates received by the 
king, 349 — Lord Fitzwilliam sent as Lord-Lieutenant, 350 — 
Popular enthusiasm, 350 — Recalled, 351 — Result of his recall, 
352, 353- 

LIU. 

'Ninety-eight . . • . . . . 354-366 

Wolfe Tone, his character and autobiography, 354 — The other 
leaders of the rebellion, 354 — England and France at war, 
355 — Hoche's descent, 355 — Panic, 357 — Habeas Corpus Act 
suspended, 357 — Misconduct of soldiers, 359 — Arrest of Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald, 361 — Outbreak of the rebellion, 361 — 
The rising in Wexford, 362 — Bagenal Harvey, 363 — Arklow, 
New Ross, and Vinegar Hill, 363 — Suppression of the rebel- 
lion, 364 — Final incidents, 365 — Death of Wolfe Tone, 366. 

LIV. 
The Union 367-376 

State of Ireland after the rebellion, 367, 368 — Pitt resolved 
to pass the Union, 370 — Inducements offered, 370 — Dis- 
crepancy of statements upon the subject, 371 — Bribery or 
not bribery ? 372 — Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh, 373 
• — The Union carried, 375. 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LV. 

O'CONNELL AND CaTHOLIC EMANCIPATION . 377-389 

The Union not followed by union, 277 — The Emmett out- 
break, 377 — Young Daniel O'Connell, 379 — The new Catholic 
Association, 380 — The Clare election, 381— Catholic Relief 
Bill carried, 381 — The "Incarnation of a people," 383— 
Repeal, 384 — The O'Connell gatherings, 386 — The meeting 
proclaimed at Clontarf, 387 — Prosecution and condemnation 
of O'Connell, 387 — Released on appeal, 387 — Never regained 
his power, 388— Despondency and death, 388, 389. 

LVI. 
"Young Ireland" 390-395 

"The Nation," 390— Sir C. Gavan Duffy, 390 — Thomas 
Davis, 390 — Smith O'Brien, 391 — Effect of O'Connell's death 
on the "Young Ireland" party, 392 — ^James Lalor, 393 — His 
influence on Mitchell, 393 — The "United Irishmen" news- 
paper started, 394 — Arrest and transportation of Mitchell, 394 
— The end of the " Young Ireland " movement, 395. 

LVII. 
The Famine . . . . . . 396-402 

First symptoms of the potato disease, 396 — The fatal night, 
396 — Beginning of Famine, 397 — Rapid mortality, 397 — Mr. 
Forster's reports, 398 — Relief works, 399 — Soup kitchens, 399 
- — Failure of preventive measures, 399 — Famine followed by 
ruin, 400 — Clearances and Emigration, 401 — Emigrant ships, 
401 — Permanent effects of the Famine on Ireland, 402. 

LVIII. 
The Latest Development .... 403-416 

Encumbered Estates Act, 403 — Tenant League of North and 
South, 403 — The "Brass Band," 404 — A lull, 404 — The 
Phcenix organization, 404 — The Fenian "scare," 405 — Rescue 
of Fenian prisoners at Manchester, 405 — The Clerkenwel] 
explosion, 406 — The Irish Church Act, 406, 407 — The Irish 



CONTENTS. XXV 

PAGE 

Land Act of 1870, 407 — Failure of Irish Education Act, and 
retirement of the Liberals, 408 — Mr. Butt and Mr. Parnell, 
408 — The Land League established, 409 — Return of the 
Liberals to power, 409 — The Irish Land Act of 18S1, 410 — 
Arrest and release of Land League Leaders, 411 — Murders in 
the Phoenix Park, 411 — James Carey, 412 — His death, 412 — 
The agrarian struggle, 413 — Home Rule, 414 — Its eventual 
destiny, 414 — The untravelled Future, 416. 

LIX, 
Conclusion 417-419 

Irish heroes, 417 — Causes of their want of popularity, 418 — 
Irish versus Scotch heroes, 418 — " Prince Posterity," 419. 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



[Nearly all the archseological illustrations in this volume are from 
"The Early Christian Architecture of Ireland," by Miss M. Stokes, 
who has kindly allowed them to be reproduced. The portraits are 
chiefly from engravings, &c., kept in the Prints Room of the British 
Museum.] 

PAGE 

Frontispiece 



HOLY ISLAND, LOUGH DERG . 

MAP OF IRELAND IN REIGN OF HENRY VII. 

CROSS IN CEMETERY OF TEMPUL BRECCAN 

WEST CROSS, MONASTERBOICE . 

DOORWAY OF MAGHERA CHURCH 

KILBANNON TOWER . 

KELLS ROUND TOWER 

BASE OF TUAM CROSS 

DOORWAY OF KILLESHIN CHURCH 

INTERIOR OF CORMAC'S CHAPEL (CASHEL) 

WEST FRONT OF ST. CRONAN'S CHURCH . 

WEST DOORWAY OF FRESHFORD CHURCH 

SIR HENRY SIDNEY (PORTRAIT OF.) . 



39 
48 

SI 

54 
57 
62 

65 

72 

n 
80 

175 



xxviii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 



ASKEATON CASTLE . , 

CATHERINE, THE " OLD " COUNTESS OF DESMOND 

SIR JOHN PERROT (PORTRAIT OF) .... 

CAHIR CASTLE (iN 1 599) . . . . . 

CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF ORMOND BY THE O'MORES 

IRELAND IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I. . . . 

THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, 164I 

ARCHBISHOP USSHER (PORTRAIT OF) 

JAMES, DUKE OF ORMOND (PORTRAIT OF) 

HENRY CROMWELL (PORTRAIT OF) .... 

" TIGER " ROCHE 

DEAN SWIFT (PORTRAIT OF) 

PHILIP, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD (PORTRAIT OF) . 

RIGHT HON. HENRY FLOOD (PORTRAIT OF) . 

RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN, M.P. (PORTRAIT OF) 

JAMES CAULFIELD, EARL OF CHARLEMONT (PORTRAIT OF 

RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE (PORTRAIT OF) 

THE EARL OF MOIRA (" A .MAN OF IMPORTANCE") 

RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE (SKETCH FROM LIFE) 

THEOBALD WOLFE TONE (PORTRAIT OF) . 

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD (PORTRAIT OF) 

THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN 

MARQUIS CORNWALLIS (PORTRAIT OF) . 

ROBERT EMMETT (PORTRAIT OF) 

DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P. (SKETCH OF) . 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXIX 

LESSER ILLUSTRATIONS (at end of chapters). 

PAGE 

CROMLECH ON HOWTH 12* 

MOUTH OF SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER AT DOWTH . . 3I 

ST. Kevin's church 41 

CORMAC'S CHAPEL AND ROUND TOWER . . . 70 

ROUND TOWER AT DEVENISH 75 

SOUTH WINDOW OF ST. CAEMIN's CHURCH ... 89 

FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT 97 

TRIM CASTLE .112 

FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT . . . • I3I AND 150 

INITIAL LETTER (fROM THE BOOK OF KELLs) . . 160 

ST. PATRICK'S BELL . 173 

INITIAL LETTER (fROM THE BOOK OF KELLs) . . 202 

CINERARY URN 2IO 

TARA BROOCH'. . . 219 

DOORWAY OF ST. CAEMIN's CHURCH .... 225 

SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL 239 

ST. COLUMBA's ORATORY . . . . . . 265 

INITIAL LETTER (fROM THE BOOK OF KELLs) . . 294 

CRYPT OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL . . . 376 




THE STORY OF IRELAND. 



I. 

PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

" It seems to be certain," says the Abbe McGeo- 
ghehan, "that Ireland continued uninhabited from 
the Creation to the Deluge." With this assurance to 
help us on our onward way I may venture to supple- 
ment it by saying that little is known about the 
first, or even about the second, third, and fourth suc- 
cession of settlers in Ireland, At what precise period 
what is known as the Scoto-Celtic branch of the great 
Aryan stock broke away from its parent tree, by what 
route its migrants travelled, in what degree of con- 
sanguinity it stood to the equally Celtic race or races 
of Britain, what sort of people inhabited Ireland 
previous to the first Aryan invasion — all this is in the 
last degree uncertain, though that it was inhabited by 
some race or races outside the limits of that greatest 
of human groups seems from ethnological evidence 
to be perfectly clear. 

When first it dawns upon us through that thick 




10 Lon^tiulr West 9 uf Grcenwidj 8 



2 PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

darkness which hangs about the birth of all countries 
— whatever their destiny — it was a densely wooded 
and scantily peopled island "lying a-loose," as old 
Campion, the Elizabethan historian, tells us, " upon 
the West Ocean," though his further assertion that 
" in shape it resembleth an egg, plain on the sides, 
and not reaching forth to the sea in nooks and 
elbows of Land as Brittaine doeth " — cannot be said 
to be quite geographically accurate — the last part of 
the description referring evidently to the east coast, 
the only one with which, like most of his country- 
men, he was at that time familiar. 

Geographically, then, and topographically it was 
no doubt in much the same state as the greater part 
of it remained up to the middle or end of the six- 
teenth century, a wild, tangled, roadless land, that is 
to say, shaggy with forests, abounding in streams, 
abounding, too, in lakes — far more, doubtless, than 
at present, drainage and other causes having greatly 
reduced their number — with rivers bearing the never- 
failing tribute of the skies to the sea, yet not so 
thoroughly as to hinder enormous districts from re- 
maining in a swamped and saturated condition, given 
up to the bogs, which even at the present time are 
said to cover nearly one-sixth of its surface. 

This superfluity of bogs seems always in earlier 
times to have been expeditiously set down by all 
historians and agriculturists as part of the general 
depravity of the Irish native, who had allowed his 
good lands,- — doubtless for his own mischievous plea- 
sure—to run to waste ; bogs being then supposed to 
differ from other lands only so far as they were made 



GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY. 3 

"waste and barren by superfluous moisture." About 
the middle of last century it began to be perceived 
that this view of the matter was somewhat inade- 
quate ; the theory then prevailing being that bogs 
owed their origin not to water alone, but to the 
destruction of woods, whose remains are found im- 
bedded in them — a view which held good for another 
fifty or sixty years, until it was in its turn effectually 
disposed of by the report of the Bogs Commission in 
1 8 10, when it was proved once for all that it was to 
the growth of sphagnums and other peat-producing 
mosses they were in the main due — a view which has 
never since been called in question. 

A great deal, however, had happened to Ireland 
before the bogs began to grow on it at all. It had — to 
speak only of some of its later vicissitudes — been twice 
at least united to England, and through it with what 
we now know as the continent of Europe, and twice 
severed from it again. It had been exposed to a cold 
so intense as to bleach off all life from its surface, 
utterly depriving it of vegetation, and grinding the 
mountains down to that scraped bun -like outline 
which 30 many of them still retain ; had covered the 
whole country, highlands and lowlands alike, with a 
dense overtoppling cap of snow, towering often thou- 
sands of feet above the present height of the moun- 
tains, from which "central silence" the glaciers crept 
sleepily down the ravines and valleys, eating their 
way steadily seaward, and leaving behind them 
moraines to mark their passage, leaving also longi- 
tudinal scratches, cut, as a diamond cuts glass, upon 
the rocks, as may be seen by any one who takes 



4 PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

the trouble of looking for them ; finally reaching 
the sea in a vast sloping plateau which pushed its 
course steadily onward until its further advance was 
overborne by the buoyancy of the salt water, the 
ends breaking off, as the Greenland glaciers do to- 
day, into huge floating icebergs, which butted against 
one another, jammed up all the smaller bays and 
fiords ; were carried in again and again on the 
rising tide ; rolled hither and thither like so many 
colossal ninepins ; played, in short, all the old rough- 
and-tumble Arctic games through many a cold and 
dismal century, finally melting away as the milder 
weather began slowly to return, leaving Ireland a 
very lamentable-looking island indeed, not unlike 
one of those deplorable islands scattered along the 
shores of Greenland and upon the edges of Baffin's 
Bay — treeless, grassless, brown and scalded, wearing 
everywhere over its surface the marks of that great 
ice-plough which had lacerated its sides so long. 

There seems to be good geological evidence that 
the land connection between Ireland and Scotland 
continued to a considerably later period than between 
it and England, to which, and as far as can be seen 
to no other possible cause is to be attributed two 
very striking characteristics of its fauna, namely, its 
excessive meagreness and its strikingly northern 
character. Not only does it come far short of the 
already meagre English fauna, but all the distinctively 
southern species are the ones missing, though there 
is nothing in the climate to account for the fact. 
The Irish hare, for instance, is not the ordinary brown 
hare of England, but the "blue" or Arctic hare of 



FAUNA AND FLORA. 5 

Scotch mountains, the same which still further to the 
north becomes white in winter, a habit which, owing 
to the milder Irish winters, it has apparently shaken 
off. 

It would be pleasant to linger here a little over 
this point of distribution — so fruitful of suggestion as 
to the early history of the planet we occupy. To 
speculate as to the curious contradictions, or apparent 
contradictions, to be found even within so narrow an 
area as that of Ireland. What, for instance, has 
brought a group of South European plants to the 
shores of Kerry and Connemara, which plants are not 
to be found in England, even in Cornwall, which one 
would have thought must surely have arrested them 
first ? Why, when neither the common toad or frog 
are indigenous in Ireland (for the latter, though 
common enough now, was only introduced at the 
beginning of last century) a comparatively rare little 
toad, the Natterjack, should be found in one corner 
of Kerry to all appearances indigenously? All these 
questions, however, belong to quite another sort of 
book, and to a much larger survey of the field than 
there is time here to embark upon, so there is nothing 
for it but to turn one's back resolutely upon the 
tempting sin of discursiveness, or we shall find our- 
selves belated before our real journey is even 
begun. 

The first people, then, of whose existence in Ireland 
we can be said to know anything are commonly 
asserted to have been of Turanian origin, and are 
known as "Formorians." As far as we can gather, 
they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race, although, 



6 - PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish 
legend is always used as synonymous with the word 
giant. They were, at any rate, a race of utterly 
savage hunters and fishermen, ignorant of metal, of 
pottery, possibly even of the use of fire ; using the 
stone hammers or hatchets of which vast numbers 
remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which 
may be seen in every museum. How long they held 
possession no one can tell, although Irish philologists 
believe several local Irish names to date from this 
almost inconceivably remote epoch. Perhaps if we 
think of the Lapps of the present day, and picture 
them wandering about the country, catching the hares 
and rabbits in nooses, burrowing in the earth or 
amongst rocks, and being, not impossibly, looked 
down on with scorn by the great Irish elk which still 
stalked majestically over the hills ; rearing ugly little 
altars to dim, formless gods ; trembling at every 
sudden gust, and seeing demon faces in every bush 
and brake, it will give us a fairly good notion of 
what these very earliest inhabitants of Ireland were 
probably like. 

Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the 
Firbolgs, who overran the country, and appear to 
have been of a somewhat higher ethnological grade, 
although, like the Formorians, short, dark, and swarthy. 
Doubtless the latter were, not entirely exterminated 
to make way for the Firbolgs, any more than the 
Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, 
and other successive races ; such wholesale exter- J 
minations being, in fact, very rare, especially in a 
country which like Ireland seems specially laid out 



THE FIRBOLGS. 7 

by kindly nature for the protection of a weaker race 
struggling in the grip of a stronger one. 

After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to 
be obliged to say how long after, fresh and more 
important tribes of invaders began to appear. The 
first of these were the Tuatha-da-Danaans, who 
arrived under the leadership of their king Nuad, and 
took possession of the east of the country. These 
Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large, 
blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and 
possibly ancestors of those Norsemen or " Danes " who 
in years to come were destined to work such woe and 
havoc upon the island. 

Many battles took place between these Danaans 
and the earlier Firbolgic settlers —the native owners as 
no doubt they felt themselves of the country. One of 
the best substantiated of these, not, indeed, by history 
or even tradition, but by a more solid testimony, that 
of the stone remains left on the spot, prove, at any 
rate, that so^ue long- sustained battle was at some 
remote period fought on the spot. 

This is the famous pre-historic battle of Moytura, 
rather the Southern Moytura, for there were two ; 
the other, situated not far from the present town of 
Sligo, retaining " the largest collection of pre-historic 
remains," says Dr. Petrie, " in any region in the world 
with the exception of Carnac." This second battle 
of Moytura was fought upon the plain of Cong, which 
is washed by the waters of Lough Mask and Lough 
Corrib, close to where the long monotonous midland 
plain of Ireland becomes broken, changes into that 
region of high mountains and low-lying valleys, now 



8 PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

called Connemara, but which in earlier days was 
always known as lar Connaught. 

It is a wild scene even now, not very much less 
so than it must have been when this old and half- 
mythical Battle of the West was fought and won. A 
grey plain, " stone- roughened like the graveyard of 
' dead hosts," broken into grassy ridges, and starred at 
intervals with pools, repeating the larger glitter of 
the lake hard by. Over the whole surface of this 
tumbled plain rise, at intervals, great masses of rock, 
some natural, but others artificially up-tilted — crom- 
lechs and dolmens, menhirs and cairns — whitened by 
lichen scrawls, giving them often in uncertain light 
the effect of so many undecipherable inscriptions, 
written in a long-forgotten tongue. 

From the position of the battle-field it has been 
made out to their own satisfaction by those who have 
studied it on the spot, that the Firbolgs must have 
taken up a fortified position upon the hill called Ben- 
levi ; a good strategic position unquestionably, having 
behind it the whole of the Mayo mountains into which 
to retreat in case of defeat. The Danaans, on the other 
hand, advancing from the plains of Meath, took up their 
station upon the hill known as Knockmaa,^ standing by 
itself about five miles from the present town of Tuam, 
on the top of which stands a great cairn, believed to 
have been in existence even then — a legacy of some 
yet earlier and more primitive race which inhabited 
the country, and, therefore, possibly the oldest record 
of humanity to-day extant in Ireland. 

Three days the battle is said to have raged with 

'■ Now Castle Hacket Hill. 



BATTLE OF MOYTURA. g 

varying fortunes, in the course of which the Danaan 
king Nuad lost his arm, a loss which was repaired, we 
are told, by the famous artificer Credue or Cerd, who 
made him a silver one, and as " Nuad of the Silver 
Hand " he figures conspicuously in early Irish history. 
In spite of this, and of the death of a number of their 
fighting-men, the stars fought for the Tuatha-da- 
Danaans, who were strong men and cunning, workers 
in metal, and great fighters, so that at last they 
utterly made an end of their antagonists, occupying 
the whole country, and holding it, say the annalists 
for a hundred and ninety and six years — building 
earth and stone forts, many of which exist to this 
day, but what their end was no man can tell you, 
save that they, too, were, in their turn, conquered by 
the Milesians or "Scoti," who next overran the country, 
giving to it their own name of Scotia, by which name 
it was known down to the end of the twelfth century, 
and driving the earlier settlers before them, who there- 
upon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the forests, 
whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant 
effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race 
did upon t/ieir conquerors in later days. 

As regards the early doings of these Scoti, although 
nearer to us in point of time, their history is, if any- 
thing, rather more vague than that of their prede- 
cessors. The source for the greater part of it is in a 
work known as the " Annals of the Four Masters," a 
compilation put together in the sixteenth century, from 
documents now no longer existing, and which must 
unfortunately, be regarded as largely fictitious. Were 
names, indeed, all that were wanting to give substan- 



10 PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 

tiality there are enough and to spare, the beginning 
of every Irish history positively bristling with them. 
Leland, for instance, who published his three sturdy 
tomes in the year 1773, and who is still one of our 
chief authorities on the subject, speaks of Ireland as 
having " engendered one hundred and seventy one 
monarchs, all of the same house and lineage ; with 
sixty-eight kings, and two queens of Great Brittain 
and Ireland all sprung equally from her loins." We 
read in his pages of the famous brethren Heber and 
Heremon, sons of Milesius, who divided the island 
between them ; of Allamh Fodla, celebrated as a 
healer of feuds and protector of learning, who drew 
the priests and bards together into a triennial 
assembly at Tara, in Meath ; of Kimbaoth, who is 
praised by the annalists for having advanced learning 
and kept the peace. The times of peace had not ab- 
solutely arrived however, for he was not long after 
murdered, and wild confusion and wholesale slaughter 
ensued. Another Milesian prince, Thuathal, shortly 
afterwards returned from North Britain, and, assisted 
by a body of Pictish soldiers, defeated the rebels, 
restored order, and re-established the seat of his 
monarchy in Meath. 

As a specimen of the sort of stories current in 
history of this kind, Leland relates at considerable 
length the account of the insult offered to this Thuathal 
by the provincial king of Leinster. " The king," he 
tells us, " had married the daughter of Thuathal, but 
conceiving a violent passion for her sister, pretended 
that his wife had died, and demanded and obtained 
her sister in marriage. The two ladies met in the 



MYTHS. II 

royal house of Leinster. Astonishment and sorrow 
put an end to their lives ! " The offender not long 
afterwards was invaded by his justly indignant 
father-in-law, and his province only preserved from 
desolation on condition of paying a heavy tribute, 
" as a perpetual memorial of the resentment of 
Thuathal and of the offence committed by the king 
of Leinster." 

Another special favourite of the annalists is Cormac 
O'Conn, whose reign they place about the year 250, 
and over whose doings they wax eloquent, dwell- 
ing upon the splendour of his court, the heroism of 
his warlike sons, the beauty of his ten fair daughters, 
the doings of his famous militia, the Fenni or Fenians, 
and especially of his illustrious general Finn, or Fingal, 
the hero of the legends, and father of the poet Ossian 
— a warrior whom we shall meet with again in the 
next chapter. 

And now, it will perhaps be asked, what is one in 
sober seriousness to say to all this .'' All that one can 
say is that these tales are not to be taken as history 
in any rigid sense of the word, but must for the most 
part be regarded as mere hints, caught from chaos, 
and coming down through a hundred broken mediums ; 
scraps of adventures told around camp fires ; oral 
traditions ; rude songs handed from father to son, and 
altering more or less with each new teller. The early 
history of Ireland is in this respect much like the early 
history of all other countries. We have the same 
semi-mythical aggregations, grown up around some 
small kernel of reality, but so changed, swollen, 
distorted, that it is difficult to distinguish the true 



13 



PRIMEVAL IRELAND. 



from the false ; becoming vaguer and vaguer too 
as the mists of time and sentiment gather more and 
more thickly around them, until at last we seem to be 
swimming dimly in a " moony vapour," which allows no 
dull peaks of reality to pierce through it at all. "There 
were giants in those days," is a continually recurring 
assertion, characteristic of all ancient annals, and of 
these with the rest. 




CROMLECH ON HOWTH. 



II. 



THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS. 

Better far than such historic shams — cardboard 
castles with little or no substance behind them — are the 
real legends. These put forward no obtrusive preten- 
sions to accuracy, and for that very reason are far 
truer in that larger sense in which all the genuine 
and spontaneous outgrowth of a country form part 
and parcel of its history. Some of the best of these 
have been excellently translated by Mr. Joyce, whose 
"Celtic Romances" ought to be in the hands of every 
one, from the boy of twelve upwards, who aspires to 
know anything of the inner history of Ireland ; to 
understand, that is to say, that curiously recurrent note 
of poetry and pathos which breaks continually through 
all the dull hard prose of the surface. A note often 
lost in unmitigated din and discord, yet none the less 
re-emerging, age after age, and century after century, 
and always when it does so lending its own charm 
to a record, which, without some such alleviations, 
would be almost too grim and disheartening in its 
unrelieved and unresulting misery to be voluntarily 
approached at all. 

Although as they now stand none appear to be of 



14 THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS. 

earlier date than the ninth or tenth century, these 
stories all breathe the very breath of a primitive 
world. An air of remote pagan antiquity hangs over 
them, and as we read we seem gradually to realize 
an Ireland as unlike the one we know now as if, 
like the magic island of Buz, it had sunk under the 
waves and been lost. Take, for instance — for space 
will not allow of more than a sample — the story of "The 
Pursuit of Gilla Backer and his Horse," not by any 
means one of the best, yet characteristic enough. 
In it we learn that from Beltane, the ist of May — the 
great Celtic festival of the sun — to Sanim, the 1st of 
November, the chiefs and Fenni hunted each day with 
their hounds through the forests and over the plains, 
while from Sanim to Beltane they lived in the 
" Betas," or houses of hospitality, or feasted high 
with Finn McCumal, son of Cumal, grandson of 
Trenmore O'Baskin, whose palace stood upon the 
summit of the hill of Allen, a hill now crowned with 
a meaningless modern obelisk, covering the site of 
the old historic rath, a familiar object to thousands 
who have looked up at it from the Curragh of Kildare, 
certainly with no thought in their minds of Finn 
McCumal or his vanished warriors. 

The tale tells how one day, after hunting on the 
Plains of Cliach, the Fenni sat down to rest upon the 
hill of Colkilla, their hunting tents being pitched upon 
a level spot near the summit. How presently, afar off 
over the plain at their feet, they saw one of the con- 
quered race of earlier inhabitants, a " Formorian " of 
huge size and repulsive ugliness coming towards them, 
leading his horse by the halter, an animal larger, it 



THE STORY OF THE GILLA BACKER. 15 

seems, than six ordinary horses, but broken down and 
knock-kneed, with jaws that stuck out far in advance 
of its head. How the heroes, idHng pleasantly about in 
the sunshine, laughed aloud at the uncouth "foreigner " 
and his ugly raw-boned beast, " covered with tangled 
scraggy hair of a sooty black." How he came before 
the king and, having made obeisance, told him that 
his name was the Gilla Backer, and then and there 
took service with him for a year, desiring at the same 
time that special care should be paid to his horse, 
and the best food given it, and care taken that it 
did not stray, whereat the heroes laughed again, the 
horse standing like a thing carved in wood and unable 
apparently to move a leg. 

No sooner, however, was it loosed, and the halter 
cast off, than it rushed amongst the other horses, 
kicking and lashing, and seizing them with its 
teeth till not one escaped. Seeing which, the Fenni 
rose up in high wrath, and one of them seized the 
Gilla Backer's horse by the halter and tried to 
draw it away, but again it became like a rock, and 
refused to stir. Then he mounted its back and 
flogged it, but still it remained like a stone. Then, 
one after the other, thirteen more of the heroes 
mounted, but still it stirred not. The very instant, 
however, that its master, the Gilla Backer rose up 
angrily to depart, the old horse went too, with the 
fourteen heroes still upon his back, whereat the Fenni 
raised fresh shouts of laughter. But the Gilla Backer, 
after he had walked a little way, looked back, and 
seeing that his horse was following, stood for a moment 
to tuck up his skirts. " Then, all at once changing his 



1 6 THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS. 

pacej he set out with long strides ; and if you know 
what the speed of a swallow is, flying across a 
mountain-side, or the fairy wind of a March day 
sweeping over the plains, then you can understand 
Gilla Dacker, as he ran down the hillside towards 
the south-west. Neither was the horse behindhand 
in the race, for, though he carried a heavy load, he 
galloped like the wind after his master, plunging and 
bounding forward with as much freedom as if he had 
nothing at all on his back." 

Finn and his warriors left behind on the hill stared 
awhile, and then resolved to go to Ben Edar, now 
Howth, there to seek for a ship to follow after 
Gilla Dacker and his horse, and the fourteen 
heroes. And on their way they met two bright-faced 
youths wearing mantles of scarlet silk, fastened by 
brooches of gold, who, saluting the king, told him 
their names were Foltlebar and Feradach, and that 
they were the sons of the king of Innia, and each 
possessed an art, and that as they walked they had 
disputed whose art was the greater. "And my art," 
said Feradach, " is this. If at any time a company 
of warriors need a ship, give me only my joiner's axe 
and my crann-tavall,^ and I am able to provide a ship 
without delay. The only thing I ask them to do is this 
— to cover their heads close and keep them covered, 
while I give the crann-tavall three blows of my axe. 
Then I tell them to uncover their heads, and lo, there 
lies the ship in harbour, ready to sail ! " 

The Foltlebar spoke and said, " This, O king, is the 
art I profess : On land I can track the wild duck over 

^ A sling for projecting stones, strung rather like a cross-bow. 



THE STORY OF THE GILL A BACKER. IJ 

nine ridges and nine glens, and follow her without 
being once thrown out, till I drop upon her in her nest. 
And I can follow up a track on sea quite as well as on 
land, if I have a good ship and crew." 

And Finn replied, " You are the very men I want ; 
and now I take you both into my service. Though our 
own trackmen, the Clan Nairn, are good, yet we now 
need some one still more skilful to follow the Gilla 
Dacker through unknown seas." 

To these unknown seas they went, starting from 
Ben Edar, and sailed away west for many days over 
the Atlantic, seeing many strange sights and passing 
many unknown islands. But at last the ship stopped 
short in front of an island with vast rocky cliffs 
towering high above their heads as steep as a sheet of 
glass, at which the heroes gazed amazed and baffled, 
not knowing what to do next. But Dermot O'Dynor 
— called also Dermot of the Bright-face — undertook to 
climb it, for of all the Fenni he was the most learned 
in Druidical enchantments, having been early taught 
the secret of fairy lore by Mananan Mac Lir, who ruled 
over the Inis Manan or Land of Promise. 

Dermot accordingly took leave of his friends and 
climbed the great cliff, and when he reached the top 
he found that it was flat and covered with tall green 
grass, as is often the case in these desolate wind- 
blown Atlantic islets. And in the very centre he 
found a well with a tall pillar stone beside it, and 
beside the pillar stone a drinking-horn chased with 
gold. And he took up the drinking-horn to drink, 
being thirsty, but the instant he touched the brim 
with his lips, lo ! a great Wizard Champion armed 



1 8 THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS. 

to the teeth, sprang up out of the earth, whereupon he 
and Dermot O'Dynor fought together beside the well 
the livelong day until the dusk fell. But the moment 
the dusk fell, the wizard champion sprang with a great 
bound into the middle of the well, and so disappeared, 
leaving Dermot standing there much astonished at 
what had befallen him. 

And the next day the same thing happened, and 
the next, and the next. But on the fourth day, 
Dermot watched his foe narrowly, and when the dusk 
came on, and he saw that he was about to spring 
into the well, he flung his arms tightly about him, 
and the wizard champion struggled to get free, but 
Dermot held him, and at length they both fell 
together into the well, deeper and deeper to the 
very bottom of the earth, and there was nothing 
to be seen but dim shadows, and nothing to be 
heard but vague confused sounds like the roaring 
of waves. At length there came a glimmering of 
light, and all at once bright day broke suddenly 
around them, and they came out at the other side 
of the earth, and found themselves in Tir-fa-ton, the 
land under the sea, where the flowers bloom all the 
year round, and no man has ever so much as heard the 
word Death. 

What happened there ; how Dermot O'Dynor met 
the other heroes, and how the fourteen Fenni who 
had been carried off were at last recaptured, would 
be too long to tell. Unlike most of these legends all 
comes right in the end ; Gilla Dacker and his ugly 
horse disappear suddenly into space, and neither Finn 
himself nor any of his warriors ever see them again. 



THE BARDS. 1 9 

It is Impossible, I think, to read this, and to an even 
greater degree some of the other stories, which have 
been translated by Mr. Joyce and others, without per- 
ceiving how thoroughly impregnated with old-world 
and mythological sentiment they are. An air of all 
but fabulous antiquity pervades them, greater perhaps 
than pervades the legends of any other north Euro- 
pean people. We seem transplanted to a world of 
the most primitive type conceivable ; a world of myth 
and of fable, of direct Nature interpretations, of 
mythology, in short, pure and simple. Even those 
stories which are known to be of later origin exhibit 
to a greater or less degree the same character ; one 
which has come down to them doubtless from earlier 
half- forgotten tales, of which they are merely the final 
and most modern outcome. 

When, too, we turn from the legends themselves to 
the legend-makers, everything that we know of the 
position of the bards {Ollamhs or SejinacJiies) carries 
out the same idea. In the earliest times they were 
not merely the singers and story-tellers of their race, 
but to a great degree they bore a religious or semi- 
religious character. Like the Brehons or judges they 
were the directors and guides of the others, but they 
possessed in addition a peculiarly Druidical character 
of sanctity, as the inheritors and interpreters of a 
revelation confided to them alone. A power the 
more formidable because no one, probably, had ever 
ventured to define its exact character. 

The Head bard or Ollamh, in the estimation of his 
tribesmen, stood next in importance to the chieftain or 
king — higher, indeed, in some respects ; for whereas 



20 THE LEGENDS AND THE LEGEND MAKERS. 

to slay a king might, or might not be criminal, to slay 
an Ollamh entailed both outlawing in this life and a 
vaguer, but not the less terrible, supernatural penalty in 
another. Occasionally, as in the case of the Ollamh 
Fodhla, by whom the halls of Tara are reputed to have 
been built, the king was himself the bard, and so 
combined both offices, but this appears to have been 
rare. Even as late as the sixteenth century, refusal 
of praise from a bard was held to confer a far deeper 
and more abiding stigma upon a man than blame from 
any other lips. If they, " the bards," says an Eliza- 
bethan writer, " say ought in dispraise, the gentleman, 
especially the meere Irish, stand in great awe." 

It is easy, I think, to see this is merely the sur- 
vival of some far more potent power wielded in earlier 
times. In pre-Christian days especially, the penalty 
attaching to the curse of a Bard was understood to 
carry with it a sort of natural anathema, not unlike 
the priestly anathema of later times. Indeed there 
was one singular, and, as far as I am aware, unique 
power possessed by the Irish Bards, which goes beyond 
any priestly or papal anathema, and which was 
known as the Claim Dickin, a truly awful malediction, 
by means of which the Ollamh, if offended or injured, 
could pronounce a spell against the very land of his 
injurer ; which spell once pronounced that land 
would produce no crop of any kind, neither could 
living creature graze upon it, neither was it possible 
even to walk over it without peril, and so it continued 
until the wrong, whatever it was, had been repented, 
and the curse of the Ollamh was lifted off from the 
land again. 



THE CLANN DICHIN. 21 

Is it to be wondered at that men, endowed with 
such powers of blessing or banning, possessed of such 
mystic communion with the then utterly unknown 
powers of nature, should have exercised an all but 
unlimited influence over the minds of their countrymen, 
especially at a time when the powers of evil were 
still supposed to stalk the earth in all their native 
malignity, and no light of any revelation had broken 
through the thick dim roof overhead ? 

Few races of which the world has ever heard are i 
as imaginative as that of the Celt, and at this time the ; 
imagination of every Celt must have been largely 
exercised in the direction of the malevolent and the 
terrible. Even now, after fourteen hundred years of 
Christianity, the Connaught or Kerry peasant still 
hears the shriek of his early gods in the sob of 
the waves or the howling of the autumn storms. Fish 
demons gleam out of the sides of the mountains, and 
the black bog-holes are the haunts of slimy monsters 
of inconceivable horror. Even the less directly 
baneful spirits such as Finvarragh, king of the fairies, 
who haunts the stony slopes of Knockmaa, and all the 
endless variety of du minores, the cluricans, banshees, 
fetches who peopled the primitive forests, and still 
hop and mow about their ruined homes, were far 
more likely to injure than to benefit unless approached 
in exactly the right manner, and with the properly 
uttered conjurations. The Unknown is always the ] 
Terrible; and the more vivid an untaught imagination 
is, the more certain it is to conjure up exactly the 
things which alarm it most, and which it least likes 
to have to believe in. 



Ill 



PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND. 



Getting out of this earliest and foggiest period, 
whose only memorials are the stones which still cumber 
the ground, or those subtler traces of occupation of 
which philology keeps the key, and pushing aside a long 
and uncounted crowd of kings, with names as uncertain 
as their deeds, pushing aside, too, the legends and 
coming to hard fact, we must picture Ireland still 
covered for the most part with pathless forests, but 
here and there cleared and settled after a rude fashion 
by rough cattle-owning tribes, who herded their own 
cattle and " lifted " their neighbour's quite in the 
approved fashion of the Scotch Highlanders up to a 
century and a half ago. 

Upon the whole, we may fairly conclude that matters 
were ameliorating more or less ; that the wolves were 
being killed, the woods cleared — -not as yet in the 
ferocious wholesale fashion of later days — that a little 
rudimentary agriculture showed perhaps here and there 
in sheltered places. Sheep and goats grazed then as 
now over the hills, and herds of cattle began to cover 
the Lowlands. The men, too, were possibly beginning 
to grow a trifle less like two-legged beasts of prey, 



SLAVERY. 23 

though Still rough as the very wolves they hunted ; 
bare-legged, wild-eyed hunter-herdsmen with^ — who 
can doubt it ? — flocks of children trooping vociferously 
at their heels. 

Of the daily life, habits, dress, religion of these 
people — the direct ancestors of four-fifths of the pre- 
sent inhabitants of Ireland — we know unfortunately 
exceedingly little. It is not even certain, whether 
human sacrifices did or did not form — as they certainly 
did in Celtic Britain — part of that religion, though 
there is some evidence that it did, in which case 
prisoners taken in battle, or slaves, were probably the 
victims. 

That a considerable amount of slavery existed 
in early Celtic Ireland is certain, though as to the 
rules by which it was regulated, as of almost every 
other detail of the life, we know little or nothing. 
At the time of the Anglo-Norman conquest Ireland 
was said to be full of English slaves carried off in 
raids along the coast, and these filibustering expedi- 
tions undoubtedly began in very early times. St. 
Patrick himself was thus carried off, and the annalists 
tell us that in the third century Cormac Mac Art 
ravaged the whole western coast of Britain, and 
brought away " great stores of slaves and treasures." 
To how late a period, too, the earlier conquered races 
of Ireland, such as the Formorians, continued as a 
distinct race from their Milesian conquerors, and 
whether they existed as a slave class, or, as seems 
more probable, as mere outcasts and vagabonds out of 
the pale of humanity, liable like the " Tory " of many 
centuries later, to be killed whenever caught ; all these 



34 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND. 

are matters on which we have unfortunately only the 
vaguest hints to guide us. 

The whole texture of society must have been loose 
and irregular to a degree that it is difficult for us now 
to conceive, without central organization or social 
cement of any kind. In one respect — that of the 
treatment of his women — the Irish Celt seems to have 
always stood in favourable contrast to most of the 
other rude races which then covered the north of 
Europe, but as regards the rest there was probably 
little difference. Fighting was the one aim of life. 
Not to have washed his spear in an adversary's gore, 
was a reproach which would have been felt by a full- 
grown tribesman to have carried with it the deepest 
and most lasting ignominy. The very women were 
not in early times exempt from war service, nay, 
probably would have scorned to be so. They fought 
beside their husbands, and slew or got slain with as 
reckless a courage as the men, and it was not until the 
time of St. Columba, late in the sixth century, that a 
law was passed ordering them to remain in their 
homes — a fact which alone speaks volumes both for 
the vigour and the undying pugnacity of the race. 

While, on the one hand, we can hardly thus 
exaggerate the rudeness of this life, we must be 
careful, on the other, of concluding that these people 
were simple barbarians, incapable of discriminating 
right from wrong. Men, even the wildest, rarely 
indeed live entirely without some law to guide them, 
and certainly it was so in Ireland. A rule was growing 
up and becoming theoretically at any rate, established, 
many of the provisions of which startle us by the 



ANCIENT IRISH LAW. 25 

curious modernness of their tone, so oddly do they 
contrast with what we know of the condition of civi- 
lization or non-civilization then existing. 

Although this ancient Irish law was not drawn up 
until long after the introduction of Christianity, it 
seems best to speak of it here, as, though modified by 
the stricter Christian rule, it in the main depended 
for such authority as it possessed upon traditions 
existing long before ; traditions regarded indeed by 
Celtic scholars as tracing their origin beyond the 
arrival of the first Celt in Ireland, outcomes and sur- 
vivals, that is to say, of yet earlier Aryan rule, showing 
points of resemblance with the equally Aryan laws of 
India, a matter of great interest, carrying our thoughts 
back along the history of humanity to a time when 
those differences which seem now the most inherent 
and vital were as yet undreamt of, and not one of the 
great nations of the modern world were as much as 
born. 

The two chief books in which this law is contained, 
the "Book of Aicill" and the " Senchus-Mor," have 
only comparatively recently been translated and made 
available for English readers. The law as there laid 
down was drawn up and administered by the Brehons, 
who were the judges and the law-makers of the 
people, and whose decision was appealed to in all 
matters of dispute. The most serious flaw of the 
system — a very serious one it will be seen — was 
that, owing to the scattered and tribal existence 
prevailing, there was no strong central rule beJiind the 
Brehon, as there is behind the modern judge, ready 
and able to enforce his decrees. At bottom, force, 



26 ' PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND. 

it must not be forgotten, is the sanction of all law, 
and there was no available force of any kind then, nor 
for many a long day afterwards, in Ireland. 

It was, no doubt, owing chiefly to this defective 
weakness that a system of fines rather than 'punish- 
ments grew up, one which in later times caused much 
scandal to English legal writers. In such a society 
crime in fact was hardly recognizable except in the form 
of an injury inflicted upon some person or persons. An 
offence against the State there could not be, simply be- 
cause there was no State to be offended. Everything, 
from murder down to the smallest and most acciden- 
tal injury, was compensated for by " erics " or fines. 
The amount of these fines was decided upon by the 
Brehon, who kept an extraordinary number of ima- 
ginary rulings, descending into the most minute par- 
ticulars, such as what fine was to be paid in the case 
of one person's cat stealing milk from another person's 
house, what fine in the case of one woman's bees 
stinging another woman, a careful distinction being 
preserved in this case between the case in which the 
sting did or did not draw blood ! Even in the matter 
of fines it does not seem clear how the penalty was 
to be enforced where the person on whom it was 
inflicted refused to submit and where there was no 
one at hand to coerce him successfully. 

-As regards ownership of land early Irish law is 
very peculiar, and requires to be carefully studied. 
Primogeniture, regarded by all English lawyers trained 
under the feudal system as the very basis of inheri- 
tance, was simply unknown. Even in the case of the 
chieftain his rights belonged only to himself, and 



1 



ANCIENT IRISH LAW. 2/ 

before his death a re-election took place, when some 
other of the same blood, not necessarily his eldest 
son, or even his son at all, but a brother, first cousin, 
uncle, or whoever stood highest in the estimation of 
the clan, was nominated as " Tanist " or successor, 
and received promises of support from the rest. 

Elizabethan writers mention a stone which was 
placed upon a hill or mound having the shape of a 
foot cut on it, supposed to be that of the first chief 
or ancestor of the race, " upon which stone the Tanist 
placing his foot, took oath to maintain all ancient 
customs inviolably, and to give up the succession 
peaceably to his Tanist in due time." 

The object of securing a Tanist during the lifetime 
of the chief was to hinder its falling to a minor, or 
some one unfit to take up the chieftainship, and this 
continued to prevail for centuries after the Anglo- 
Norman invasion, and was even adopted by many 
owners of English descent who had become " meere 
Irish," as the phrase ran, or " degenerate English." 

" The childe being oftentimes left in nonage/' says 
Campion, " could never defend his patrimony, but by 
the time he grow to a competent age and have buried 
an uncle or two, he also taketh his turn," a custom 
which, as he adds, " breedeth among them continual 
warres." 

The entire land belonged to the clan, and was 
held theoretically in common, and a redistribution 
made on the death of each owner, though it seems 
doubtful whether so very inconvenient an arrange- 
ment could practically have been adhered to. All 
sons, illegitimate as well as legitimate, shared and 



28 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND. 

shared alike, holding the property between them in 
undivided ownership. It was less the actual land 
than the amount of grazing it afforded which con- 
stituted its value. Even to this day a man, especially 
in the West of Ireland, will tell you that he has "the 
grass of three cows," or " the grass of six cows," as 
the case may be. 

It is curious that the most distinct ancient rules 
concerning the excessive extortion of rent are, as 
has been shown by Sir Henry Maine, to be found 
in the " Senchus Mor." Under its regulations three 
rents are enumerated — namely, the 7^ack rejit to be 
extorted from one of a strange tribe ; the fair rent 
from one of the same tribe ; and the stipulated rent 
to be paid equally to either. The Irish clan or sept 
was a very loose, and in many cases irregular, 
structure, embracing even those who were practically 
undistinguishable from slaves, yet from none of these 
could any but z.fair or customary rent be demanded. 
It was only when those who by no fiction could be 
supposed to belong to the clan sought for land that 
the best price attainable might be extorted and 
insisted upon. 

In so primitive a state of society such persons were 
almost sure to be outcasts, thrown upon the world 
either by the breaking up of other clans or by their 
own misdoings. A man of this class was generally 
what was known as a " Fuidhar " or " broken man," | 
and answered in some respects to the slave or the 
serf of the early English village community. Like 
him he seems to have been his lord's or chief's chattel, 
and if killed or injured the fine or "eric" was paid 



THE FAMILY. 29 

not to his own family, but to his master. Such men 
were usually settled by the chief upon the unap- 
propriated tribal lands over which his own authority 
tended to increase. This Fuidhar class from the 
first seem to have been very numerous, and de- 
pending as they did absolutely upon the chief, there 
grew up by degrees that class of armed retainers — 
kerns and galloglasses, they were called in later 
times — who surrounded every important chief, whether 
of English or Irish descent, and were by them quar- 
tered forcibly in war time upon others, and so there 
grew up that system of " coyne and livery," or forced 
entertainment for horse and men, which is to be met 
with again and again throughout Irish history, and 
which undoubtedly was one of the greatest curses of 
the country, tending more perhaps than any other 
single cause to keep its people at the lowest possible 
condition of starvation and misery. 

No system of representation seems ever to have 
prevailed in Ireland. That idea is, in fact, almost 
purely Teutonic, and seems never to have sprung up 
spontaneously amongst any Celtic people. The family 
v/as the real root. Every head of a family ruled his 
own household, and submitted in his turn to the rule 
of his chief Blood-relationship, including fosterage, 
was the only real and binding union ; that larger con- 
nection known as the clan or sept, having the smaller 
one of the family for its basis, as was the case also 
amongst the clans of the Scotch highlands. Theo- 
retically, all members of a clan, high and low alike, 
were held to be the descendants of a common ancestor, 
and in this way to have a real and direct claim upon 



30 ' PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND. 

one another. If a man was not in some degree akin 
to another he was no better than a beast, and might 
be killed like one without compunction whenever 
occasion arose. 

Everything thus began and centred around the 
tribe or sept. The whole theory of life was purely 
local. The bare right of existence extended only a 
few miles from your own door, to the men who bore 
the same name as yourself. Beyond that nothing 
was sacred ; neither age nor sex, neither life nor 
goods, not even in later times the churches themselves. 
Like his cousin of the Scotch Highlands, the Irish 
tribesman's life was one perpetual carnival of fighting, 
burning, raiding, plundering, and he who plundered 
oftenest was the finest hero. 

I All this must be steadily borne in mind as it 
! enables us to understand, as nothing else will, that 
almost insane joy in and lust for fighting, that marked 
inability to settle down to orderly life which runs 
through all Irish history from the beginning almost 
to the very end. 

Patriotism, too, it must be remembered, is in the 
first instance only an idea, and the narrowest of local 
jealousies may be, and often are, forms merely of the 
same impulse. To men living in one of these small 
isolated communities, each under the rule of its own 
petty chieftain, it was natural and perhaps inevitable 
that the sense of connection with those outside their 
own community should have been remarkably slight, 
and of nationality, as we understand the word, quite 
non-existent. Their own little circle of hills and 
valleys, their own forests and pasturage was their 



TRIBAL LIFE. 



31 



world, the only one practically of which they had any 
cognizance. To its scattered inhabitants of that 
day little Ireland must have seemed a region of 
incalculable extent, filled with enemies to kill or 
to be killed by ; a region in which a man might 
wander from sunrise to sunset yet never reach the 
end, nay, for days together without coming to a 
second sea. As Greece to a Greek of one of its 
smaller states it seemed vast simply because he had 
never in his own person explored its limits. 




MOUTH OF SEPULCHRAL CHAMBER AT DOWTH, NEW GRANGE. 




IV. 

ST. PATRICK THE MISSIONARY. 

But a new element was about to appear upon the 
troubled stage, and a new figure, one whose doings, 
however liberally we may discount the more purely 
supernatural part of them, strikes us even now as 
little short of miraculous. There are plenty of 
heathen countries still ; plenty of missionaries too ; 
but a missionary at whose word an entire island — a 
heathen country given up, it must be remembered, to 
exceedingly heathen practices — resigns its own creed, 
and that missionary, too, no king, no warrior, but a 
mere unarmed stranger, without power to enforce one 
of the decrees he proclaimed so authoritatively, is a 
phenomenon which we should find some little difficulty 
now, or, indeed, at any time, in paralleling. 

In one respect St. Patrick was less fortunate than 
his equally illustrious successor, Columba, since he 
found no contemporary, or nearly contemporary 
chronicler, to write his story ; the consequence being 
that it has become so overgrown with pious myths, 
so tangled and matted with portents and miracles, 
that it is often difficult for us to see any real substance 
or outline below them at all. 



HIS EARLY LIFE. 33 

What little direct knowledge we have is derived 
from a famous Irish manuscript known as "The Book 
of Armagh," which contains, amongst other things, a 
Confession and an Epistle, believed by some authori- 
ties to have been actually written by St. Patrick him- 
self, which was copied as it now stands by a monkish 
scribe early in the eighth century. It also contains 
a life of the saint from which the accounts of his later 
historians have been chiefly drawn. 

According to the account now generally accepted 
he was born about the year 390, though as this would 
make him well over a hundred at the time of his 
death, perhaps 400 would be the safest date ; was a 
native, not as formerly believed of Gaul, but of Dum- 
barton upon the Clyde, whence he got carried off to 
Ireland in a filibustering raid, became the slave of one 
Milcho, an inferior chieftain, and herded his master's 
sheep upon the Slemish mountains in Antrim. 

Seven or eight years later he escaped, got back to 
Britain, was ordained, afterwards went to Gaul, 
and, according to one account, to Italy. But the 
thought of the country of his captivity seems to have 
remained upon his mind and to have haunted his 
sleeping and waking thoughts. The unborn children 
of the pagan island seemed to stretch our their hands 
for help to him. At last the inward impulse grew too 
strong to be resisted, and accompanied by a few fol- 
lowers, he set foot first on the coast of Wicklow where 
another missionary, Paladius, had before attempted 
vainly to land, and being badly received there, took 
boat again, and landed finally at the entrance of 
Strangford Lough. 



34 ST. PATRICK THE MISSIONARY. 

From this point he made his way on foot to Meath, 
where the king Laoghaire was holding a pagan festival, 
and stopped to keep Easter on the hill of Slane where 
he lit a fire. This fire being seen from the hill of Tara 
aroused great anger, as no lights were by law allowed 
to be shown before the king's beacon was lit. Laoghaire 
accordingly sent to know the meaning of this in- 
solence and to have St. Patrick brought before him. 
St. Patrick's chronicler, Maccumacthenius (one could 
wish that he had been contented with a shorter 
name !), tells that as the saint drew nigh to Tara, many 
prodigies took place. The earth shook, darkness fell, 
and certain of the magicians who opposed him were 
seized and tossed into the air. One prodigy certainly 
took place, for he seems to have won converts from 
the first. A large number appear to have been 
gained upon the spot, and before long the greater 
part of Meath had accepted the new creed, although 
its king, Laoghaire himself remained a sturdy pagan 
until his death. 

From Tara St. Patrick went to Connaught, a 
province to which he seems to have been drawn 
from the first, and there spent eight years, founding 
many churches and monasteries. There also he as- 
cended Croagh Patrick, the tall sugar-loaf mountain 
which stands over the waters of Clew Bay, and up 
to the summit of which hundreds of pilgrims still 
annually climb in his honour. 

From Connaught he next turned his steps to Ulster, 
visited Antrim and Armagh, and laid the foundations 
of the future cathedral and bishopric in the latter 
place. Wherever he went converts seem to have come 



THE NEW REVOLUTION. 35 

in to him in crowds. Even the Bards, who had nnost 
to lose by the innovation, appear to have been in 
many cases drawn over. They and the chiefs 
gained, the rest followed unhesitatingly ; whole clans 
were baptized at a time. Never was spiritual conquest 
so astonishingly complete ! 

The tale of St. Patrick's doings ; of his many 
triumphs ; his few failures ; of the boy Benignus 
his first Irish disciple ; of his wrestling upon Mount 
Cruachan ; of King Eochaidh ; of the Bard Ossian, 
and his dialogues with the apostle, all this has been 
excellently rendered into verse by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, 
whose " Legends of St. Patrick " seem to the present 
writer by no means so well known as they ought to 
be. The second poem in the series, " The Disbelief 
of Milcho," especially is one of great beauty, full of 
wild poetic gleams, and touches which breathe the 
very breath of an Irish landscape. Poetry is indeed 
the medium best suited for the Patrician history. 
The whole tale of the saint's achievements in Ireland 
is one of those in which history seems to lose its 
own sober colouring, to become luminous and half 
magical, to take on all the rosy hues of a myth. 

The best proof of the effect of the new reve- 
lation is to be found in that extraordinary burst of 
enthusiasm which marked the next few centuries. 
The passion for conversion, for missionary labour of 
all sorts, seems to have swept like a torrent over 
the island, arousing to its best and highest point 
that Celtic enthusiasm and which has never, unhap- 
pily, found such noble exercise since. Irish mis- 
sionaries flung themselves upon the dogged might 



36 ST. PATRICK THE MISSIONARY. ' 

of heathenism, and grappled with it in a death 
struggle. Amongst the Picts of the Highlands, amongst 
the fierce Friscians of the Northern seas, beside the 
Lake of Constance, where the church of St. Gall 
still preserves the name of another Irish saint, in the 
Black Forest, at Schaffhausen, at Wiirtzburg, through- 
out, in fact, all Germany and North Italy, they were 
ubiquitous. Wherever they went their own red-hot 
fervour seems to have melted every obstacle; wher- 
ever they went victory seems to have crowned their 
zeal.^ 

Discounting as much as you choose everything that 
seems to partake of pious exaggeration, there can 
be no doubt that the period which followed the 
Christianizing of Ireland was one of those shining 
epochs of spiritual and also to a great degree intellec- 
tual enthusiasm rare indeed in the history of the 
world. Men's hearts, lull of newly - won fervour, 
burned to hand on the torch in their turn to others. 
They went out by thousands, and they beckoned in 
their converts by tens of thousands. Irish hospitality 
— a quality which has happily escaped the tooth 
of criticism — broke out then with a vengeance, 
and extended its hands to half a continent. From 
Gaul, from Britain, from Germany, from dozens of 
scattered places throughout the wide dominions of 
Charlemagne, the students came ; were kept, as 
Bede expressly tells us, free of cost in the Irish 
monasteries, and drew their first inspirations in the 
Irish schools. Even now, after the lapse of all these 

' For an account of Irish missionaries in Germany, see Mr. Baring- 
Gould's " Germany," in this series, p. 46. 



CELTIC CHRISTIANITY. 37 

centuries, many of the places whence they came 
Still reverberate faintly with the memory of that time. 
Before plunging into that weltering tangle of 
confusion which makes up what we call Irish history, 
one may be forgiven for lingering a little at this 
point, even at the risk of some slight over-balance of 
proportion. With so dark a road before us, it seems 
good to remember that the energies of Irishmen were 
not, as seems sometimes to be concluded, always and 
of necessity directed to injuring themselves or tor- 
menting their rulers ! Neither was this period by 
any means a short one. It was no mere " flash in 
the pan;" no " small pot soon hot" enthusiasm, but a 
steady flame which burned undimmed for centuries. 
" During the seventh and eighth centuries, and part 
of the ninth," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, not certainly a 
prejudiced writer, " Ireland played a really great 
part in European history." " The new religious 
houses," says Mr. Green in his Short History, " looked 
for their ecclesiastical traditions, not to Rome, but to 
Ireland, and quoted for their guidance the instructions 
not of Gregory, but of Columba." " For a time," he 
adds, " it seemed as if the course of the world's 
history was to be changed, as if that older Celtic race 
which the Roman and German had swept before 
them, had turned to the moral conquest of their con- 
querors, as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was to 
mould the destinies of the Church of the West." 




V. 

THE FIRST IRISH MONASTERIES, 

At home during the same period the chief events 
were the founding of monasteries, and the settHng 
down of monastic communities, every such monastery 
becoming the protector and teacher of the Httle 
Christian community in its vicinity, educating its 
own sons, and sending them out as a bee sends its 
swarms, to settle upon new ground, and to fertiHze 
the ilowers of distant harvest fields. 

At one time, " The Tribes of the Saints " seem to 
have increased to such an extent that they threa- 
tened to absorb all others. In West Ireland especially, 
little hermitages sprung up in companies of dozens 
and hundreds, all over the rock-strewn wastes, and 
along the sad shores of the Atlantic, dotting them- 
selves like sea gulls upon barren points of rock, or 
upon sandy wastes which would barely have sufficed, 
one might think, to feed a goat. We see their re- 
mains still — so tiny, yet so enduring — in the Isles of 
Arran ; upon a dozen rocky points all round the 
bleak edges of Connemara ; in the wild mountain 
glens of the Burren— set often with an admirable 
selection of site, in some sloping dell with, perhaps, 



40 THE FIRST IRISH MONASTERIES. 

a Stream slipping lightly by and hurrying to lose 
itself in the ground, always with a well or spring 
brimming freshly over — an object still of reverence to 
the neighbouring peasants. Thanks to the innate 
stability of their material, thanks, too, to the super- 
abundance of stone in these regions, which makes them 
no temptation to the despoiier, they remain, roofless 
but otherwise pretty much as they were. We can 
look back across a dozen centuries with hardly the 
change of a detail. 

In these little western monasteries each cell stood 
as a rule by itself, containing — one would say very 
tightly containing — a single inmate. In other places, 
large buildings, however, were erected, and great 
numbers of monks lived together. Some of these 
larger communities are stated to have actually con- 
tained several thousand brethren, and though this 
sounds like an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that 
they were enormously populous. The native mode of 
existence lent itself, in fact, very readily to the arrange- 
ment. It was merely the clan or sept re- organized upon 
a religious footing. "Les premieres grands monasteres 
de ITrelande," says M. de Montalembert in his 
" Moines d'Occident," " ne furent done autre chose a 
vrai dire qui des clans, reorganises sous une forme 
religieuse." New clans, that is to say, cut out of the 
old ones, their fealty simply transferred from a chief 
to an abbot, who was almost invariably in the first 
instance of chieftain blood. " Le prince, en se faisant 
moine, devenait naturellement abbe, et restait ainsi 
dans la vie monastique, ce qu'il avait ete dans la vie 
seculiere le chef de sa race et de son clan." 



EASY PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



41 



There was thus nothing to jar with that sense of 
continuity, that inborn love of the past, of old ways, 
old habits, old modes of thought which made and 
still makes an Irishman — be he never so pronounced 
a republican — the deepest at heart of Conservatives. 
Whereas every later change of faith which has been 
endeavoured to be forced upon the country has met 
with a steady and undeviating resistance, Christianity, 
the greatest change of all, seems to have brought 
with it from the first no sense of dislocation. It as- 
similated itself quietly, and as it were naturally, with 
what it found. Under the prudent guidance of its 
first propagators, it simply gathered to itself all the 
earlier objects of belief, and with merely the change 
of a name, sanctified and turned them to its own uses. 




ST. KEVIN S CHURCH, GLENDALOUGH. 



VI. 



ST. COLUMBA AND THE WESTERN CHURCH. 



About fifty years after the death of St. Patrick a 
new missionary arose, one who was destined to carry 
the work which he had begun yet further, to become 
indeed the founder of what for centuries was the real 
metropolis and centre of Western Christendom. 

In 521 A.D., St. Columba was born in Donegal, of 
the royal race, say the annalists, of Hy-Nial — of 
the royal race, at any rate, of the great workers, doers, 
and thinkers all the world over. In 565, forty-four 
years later, he left Ireland with twelve companions 
(the apostolic number), and started on his memor- 
able journey to Scotland, a date of immeasurable 
importance in the history of Western Christianity. 

In that dense fog which hangs over these early 
times — thick enough to try even the most penetra- 
ting eyesight — there is a curious and indescribable 
pleasure in coming upon so definite, so living, so 
breathing a figure as that of St. Columba. In writing 
the early history of Ireland, one of the greatest 
difficulties which the historian — great or small — ■ 
has to encounter is to be found in that curious un- 
reality, that tantalizing sense of illusiveness and inde- 



CHARACTER OF ST. COLUMBA. 43 

finiteness which seems to envelope every figure whose 
name crops up on his pages. Even four hundred years 
later the name of a really great prince and warrior like 
Brian Boru, or Boruma, awakens no particular sense 
of reality, nay as often as not is met by a smile of 
incredulity. The existence of St. Columba no one, 
however, has been found rash enough to dispute ! His, 
in fact, is one of those essentially self-lit figures which 
seem to shed some of their own light upon every other 
they come in contact with, even accidentally. Across 
the waste of centuries we see him almost as he appeared 
to his contemporaries. There is something friendly — 
as it were, next-door-neighbourly — about the man. If 
we land to-day on lona, or stand in any of the little 
chapels in Donegal which bear his name, his presence 
seems as real and tangible to us as that of Tasso at 
Ferrara or Petrarch at Avignon. In spite of that thick 
— one is inclined to say rank — growth of miracles 
which at times confuse Adamnan's fine portrait of 
his hero — cover it thick as lichens some monumental 
slab of marble — we can still recognize his real 
lineaments underneath. His great natural gifts ; 
his abounding energy; his characteristically Irish 
love for his native soil ; for the beloved " oaks 
of Derry." We see him in his goings out and his 
comings in ; we know his faults ; his fiery Celtic 
temper, swift to wrath, swift to forgive when the 
moment of anger is over. Above all, we feel the 
charm of his abounding humanity. Like Sterne's 
Uncle Toby there seems to have been something 
about St. Columba which " eternally beckoned to the 
unfortunate to come and take shelter under him," and 



44 ST. COLUMBA AND THE WESTERN CHURCH. 

no one apparently ever refused to respond to that ^ 
appeal. I 

One thing it is important here to have clearly before 
the mind, as it is very apt to be overlooked. At 
the time of St. Columba's ministry, England, which 
during the lifetime of St. Patrick had been Roman 
and Christian, had now under the iron tlail of its 
Saxon conquerors lapsed back into Paganism. 
Ireland, therefore, which for a while had made a 
part of Christendom, had been broken short off by 
the heathen conquest of Britain. It was now a small, 
isolated fragment of Christendom, with a great 
mass of heathenism between. We can easily imagine 
what a stimulus to all the eager enthusiasts of the 
Faith the consciousness of this neighbourhood must 
have been ; how keen the desire to rush to the assault 
and to replace the Cross where it had been before. 

That assault was not, however, begun by Ire- 
land ; it was begun, as every one knows, by St. 
Augustine, a Roman priest, sent by Pope Gregory, 
who landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, in 
the year 597 — thirty- two years after St. Columba 
left Ireland. If the South of England owes its 
conversion to Rome, Northern England owes its 
conversion to Ireland, through the Irish colony at 
lona. Oswald, the king of Northumbria, had himself 
taken refuge in lona in his youth, and when sum- 
moned to reign he at once called in the Irish mission- 
aries, acting himself, we are told, as their interpreter. 
His whole reign was one continuous struggle with 
heathenism, and although at his death it triumphed for 
a time, in the end the faith and energies of the mis- 



CONTROVERSIES WITH ROME, 45 

sionaries carried all before them. After the final 
defeat of the Mercians, under their king Penda, at 
Winwoed, in 655, the struggle was practically over. 
Northern and Southern England were alike once more 
Christian. 

One of the chief agents in this result was the Irish 
monk Aidan, who had fixed his seat in the little 
peninsula of Lindisfarne, and from whose monastery, 
as from another lona, missionaries poured over the 
North of England. At Lichfield, Whitby, and many 
other places religious houses sprang up, all owing 
their allegiance to Lindisfarne, and through it to 
lona and Ireland. 

In this very fervour there lay the seeds of a new 
trouble. A serious schism arose between Western 
Christendom and the Papacy. Rome, whether 
spiritually or temporally, was a name which rever- 
berated with less awe-inspiring sound in the ears 
of Irishmen (even Irish Churchmen) than, probably, 
in those of any other people at that time on the 
globe. They had never come under the tremendous 
sway of its material power, and until centuries after 
this period — when political and, so to speak, accidental 
causes drove them into its arms — its spiritual power 
remained to them a thing apart, a foreign element to 
which they gave at most a reluctant half adhesion. 

From this it came about that early in the history 
of the Western Church serious divisions sprang up 
between it and the other churches, already being 
fast welded together into a coherent body under 
the yoke and discipline of Rome. The points in 
dispute do not strike us now of any very vital im- 



46 ST. COLUMBA AND THE WESTERN CHURCH. 

portance. They were not matters of creed at all, 
merely of external rule and discipline. A vehement 
controversy as to the proper form of the tonsure, 
another as to the correct day for Easter, raged for more 
than a century with much heat on either side ; those 
churches which owed their allegiance to lona clinging 
to the Irish methods, those who adhered to Rome 
vindicating its supreme and paramount authority. 

At the Synod of Whitby, held in 664, these points 
of dispute came to a crisis, and were adjudicated upon 
by Oswin, king of Northumbria ; Bishop Colman, 
Aidan's successor at Holy Island, maintaining the 
authority of Columba ; Wilfrid, a Saxon priest who 
had been to Rome, that of St. Peter. Oswin's own 
leaning seems at first to have been towards the 
former, but when he heard of the great pretensions of 
the Roman saint he was staggered. " St. Peter, you 
say, holds the keys of heaven and hell ? " he inquired 
thoughtfully, " have they also been given then to 
St. Columba?" It was owned with some reluctance 
that the Irish saint had been less favoured. " Then I 
give my verdict for St. Peter," said Oswin, "lest when 
I reach the gate of heaven I find it shut, and the 
porter refuse to open to me." This sounds prudent, 
but scarcely serious ; it seems, however, to have been 
regarded as serious enough by the Irish monks. The 
Synod broke up. Colman, with his Irish brethren, 
and a few English ones who threw in their lot with 
them, forsook Lindisfarne, and sailed away for Ireland. 
From that moment the rift between them and their 
English brethren grew steadily wider, and was never 
afterwards thoroughly healed. 



THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 47 

It does not, however, seem to have affected the 
position of the Irish Church at home, nor yet to have 
diminished the number of its foreign converts. Safe 
in its isolation, it continued to go on in its own way 
with Httle regard to the rest of Christendom, al- 
though in respect to the points chiefly in dispute 
it after a while submitted to the Roman decision. 
Armagh was the principal spiritual centre, but there 
were other places, now tiny villages, barely known 
by name to the tourist, which were then centres of 
learning, and recognized as such, not alone in Ireland 
itself, but throughout Europe. Clonard, Tallaght 
Clonmacnois ; Slane in Meath, where Dagobert II. 
one of the kings of France, was educated ; Kildare, 
where the sacred fire — not lamp — of St. Bridget was j 
kept burning for centuries, all are places whose names ' 
fill a considerable space in the fierce dialectical con- 
troversy of that fiery theological age.^ 

This period of growth slipped all too quickly away, 
but it has never been forgotten. It was the golden 
time to which men looked wistfully back when growing 
trouble and discord, attack from without, and dissen- 
sion from within, had torn in pieces the unhappy 
island which had shone like a beacon through Europe 
only to become its byword. The Norsemen had not 
yet struck prow on Irish strand, and the period 
between the Synod of Whitby and their appearance 
seems to have been really one of steady moral and 
intellectual growth. Heathenism no doubt still lurked 
in obscure places ; indeed traces of it may with no 

' For an excellent account of early Irish monastic life see "Ireland, 
and the Celtic Church," by Professor G. Stokes. 




WEST CROSS O-F -MONASTF.KBOICE, CO. LOUTH. 



INDUSTRIES OF THE MONKS. 49 

great difficulty still be discovered in Ireland, but 
it did not hinder the light from spreading fast under 
the stimulus which it had received from its first 
founders. The love of letters, too, sprang up with the 
religion of a book, and the copying of manuscripts 
became a passion. 

As in Italy and elsewhere, so too in Ireland, the 
monks were the painters, the illuminators, the archi- 
tects, carvers, gilders, and book-binders of their time. 
While outside the monastery walls the figljters were 
making their neighbours' lives a burden to them, 
and beyond the Irish Sea the whole world as then 
known was being shaken to pieces and reconstructed, 
the monk sat placidly inside at his work, producing 
chalices, crosiers, gold and silver vessels for the 
churches, carving crosses, inditing manuscripts filled 
with the most marvellously dexterous ornament ; 
works, which, in spite of the havoc wrought by an 
almost unbroken series of devastations which have 
poured over the doomed island, still survive to form 
the treasure of its people. We can have very little 
human sympathy, very little love for what is noble 
and admirable, if — whatever our creeds or our politics 
— we fail, as we look back across that weary waste 
which separates us from them, to extend our sym- 
pathy and admiration to these early workers — pio- 
neers in a truly national undertaking which has found 
only too few imitators since. 



VIL 



THE NORTHERN SCOURGE. 



While from the fifth to the eighth century the 
work of the Irish Church was thus yearly increasing, 
spreading its net wider and wider, and numbering its 
converts by thousands, not much good can be reported 
of the secular history of Ireland during the same 
period. It is for the most part a confused chronicle 
of small feuds, jealousies, raids, skirmishes, retali- 
ations, hardly amounting to the dignity of war, but 
certainly as distinctly the antipodes of peace. 

The tribal system, which in its earlier stages has 
been already explained, had to some degree begun 
to change its character. The struggles between the 
different septs or clans had grown into a struggle 
between a number of great chieftains, under whose 
rule the lesser ones had come to range themselves 
upon all important occasions. 

As early as the introduction of Christianity Ireland 
was already divided into four such aggregations of 
tribes — kingdoms they are commonly called — answer- 
ing pretty nearly to the present four provinces, with 
the addition of Meath, which was the appanage of 
the house of Ulster, and included West Meath, Long- 




DOORWAY OF MAGHERA CHURCH, LONDONDERRY. 

{From a drawing by George Petrie, LL.D.) 



52 ' THE NORTHERN SCOURGE. 

ford, and a fragment of the King's County. Of the 
other four provinces, Connaught acknowledged the 
rule of the O'Connors, Munster that of the O'Briens, 
Leinster of the McMurroughs, and Ulster of the 
O'Neills, who were also in theory over-kings, or, as 
the native word was, Ard-Reaghs of the entire island- 
Considering what a stout fighting race they proved 
in later ages — fighting often when submission would 
have been the wiser policy — it is curious that in 
early days these O'Neills or Hy-Nials seem to have 
been but a supine race. For centuries they were 
titular kings of Ireland, yet during all that time they 
seem never to have tried to transform their faint, 
shadowy sceptre into a real and active one. Malachy 
or Melachlin, the rival of Brian Boru, seems to have 
been the most energetic of the race, yet he allowed 
the sceptre to be plucked from his hands with an 
ease which, judging by the imperfect light shed by 
the chroniclers over the transaction, seems to be 
almost unaccountable. 

It is difficult to say how far that light, for which 
the Irish monasteries were then celebrated, extended 
4;o the people of the island at large. With one ex- 
ception, little that can be called cultivation is, it 
must be owned, discoverable, indeed long centuries 
after this Irish chieftains we know were innocent 
of the power of signing their own names. That 
exception was in the case of music, which seems to 
have been loved and studied from the first. As far 
back as we can see him the Irish Celt was celebrated 
for his love of music. In one of the earliest extant 
annals a Crzizl, or stringed harp, is described as be- 



IRISH MUSIC. 53 

longing to the Dashda, or Druid chieftain. It was 
square in form, and possessed powers wholly or partly 
miraculous. One of its strings, we are told, moved 
people to tears, another to laughter. A harp in 
Trinity College, known as the harp of Brian Boru, 
is said to be the oldest in Europe, and has thirty 
strings. This instrument has been the subject of many 
controversies. O'Curry doubts it having belonged to 
Brian Boru, and gives his reasons for believing that 
it was among the treasures of Westminster when 
Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1509, and that 
it suggested the placing of the harp in the arms of 
Ireland, and on the " harp grotes," a coinage of the 
period. However this may be we cannot doubt that 
music had early wrought itself into the very texture 
and fabric of Irish life ; airs and words, wedded 
closely together, travelling down from mouth to 
mouth for countless generations. Every little valley 
and district may be said to have had its own tra- 
ditional melodies, and the tunes with which Moore 
sixty years ago was delighting critical audiences had 
been floating unheeded and disregarded about the 
country for centuries. 

The last ten years of the eighth century were very 
bad ones for Ireland. Then for the first time the 
black Viking ships were to be seen sweeping shore- 
wards over the low grey waves of the Irish Channel, 
laden with Picts, Danes, and Norsemen, " people," 
says an old historian, " from their very cradles dis- 
sentious. Land Leapers, merciless, soure, and hardie." 
They descended upon Ireland like locusts, and where- 
ever they came ruin, misery, and disaster followed. 




g^ 



I 



I 



DESTRUCTION OF THE CHURCHES. 55 

Their first descent appears to have been upon an 
island, probably that of Lambay, near the mouth 
of what is now Dublin harbour. Returning a few 
years later, sixty of their ships, according to the Irish 
annalists, entered the Boyne, and sixty more the Liffy, 
These last were under the command of a leader who 
figures in the annals as Turgesius, whose identity 
has never been made very clear, but who appears to 
be the same person known to Norwegian historians 
as Thorkels or Thorgist. 

Whatever his name he was undoubtedly a bad 
scourge to Ireland. Landing in Ulster, he burned 
the cathedral of„ Armagh, drove out St. Patrick's 
successors, slaughtered the monks, took possession 
of the whole east coast, and marching into the centre 
of the island, established himself in a strong position 
near Athlone. 

Beyond all other Land Leapers, this Thorgist, or 
Turgesius, seems to have hated the churches. Not 
content with burning them, and killing all priests 
and monks he could find, his wife, we are told, took 
possession of the High Altar at Clonmacnois, and 
used it as a throne from which to give audience, or 
to utter prophecies and incantations. He also ex- 
acted a tribute of " nose money," which if not paid 
entailed the forfeit of the feature it was called after. 
At last three or four of the tribes united by despair 
rose against him, and he was seized and slain ; an 
event about which several versions are given, but the 
most authentic seems to be that he was taken by 
stratagem and drowned in Lough Owel, near Mul- 
lingar, in or about the year 845. 



56 THE NORTHERN SCOURGE. 

He was not, unfortunately, the last of the Land 
Leapers ! More and more they came, sweeping in 
from the north, and all seem to have made direct 
for the plunder of the monasteries, into which the 
piety of centuries had gathered most of the valuables 
of the country. The famous round towers, or 
" Clocthech " of Ireland, have been credited with a 
hundred fantastic origins, but are now known not to 
date from earlier than about the eighth or ninth cen- 
tury, are always found in connection with churches or 
monasteries, and were unquestionably used as defences 
against these northern invaders. At the first sight 
of their unholy prows, rising like water snakes above 
the waves, all the defenceless inmates and refugees 
all the church plate and valuables, and all sickly or 
aged brothers were hurried into these monastic keeps ; 
the doors — set at a height of from ten to twenty feet 
above the ground — securely closed, the ladders drawn 
up, food supplies having been no doubt already laid 
in, and a state of siege began. 

It is a pity that the annalists, who tell us so 
many things we neither care to hear nor much 
believe in, should have left us no record of any assault 
of the Northmen against one of these redoubtable 
towers. Even at the present day they would, without 
ammunition, be remarkably difficult nuts to crack ; 
indeed, it is hard to see how their assault could have 
been successfully attempted, save by the slow process 
of starvation, or possibly by fires kindled immediately 
below the entrance, and so by degrees smoking out 
their inmates. 

If any one ever succeeded in getting into them, we 




O <u 

Q § 
O "a 






58 THE NORTHERN SCOURGE. 

may be sure the Land Leapers did ! Before long they 
appear to have gathered nearly the whole spoil of the 
country into the towns, which they built and fortified 
for themselves at intervals along the coast. Cork, 
Waterford, Limerick, Wexford, and Dublin, all owe 
their origin in the first instance to the Northmen ; 
indeed it is a curious fact that Dublin can never be 
said, save for very short periods to have belonged 
to the Irish at all. It was first the capital of their 
northern invaders, and afterwards that, of course, of 
the English Government. 
/ Three whole centuries the Danish power lasted, 
and internecine war raged, a war during which almost 
every trace of earlier civilizing influences, all those 
milder habits and ways of thought, which Chris- 
tianity had brought in and fostered, perished well- 
nigh utterly. The ferocity of the invaders communi- 
cated itself to the invaded, and the whole history is 
one confused and continual chronicle of horrors and 
barbarities. 

An important distinction must be made at this point 
between the effects of the Northern invasion in Eng- 
land and in Ireland. In the former the invaders and 
natives became after a while more or less assimilated, 
and, under Canute, an orderly government, composed 
of both nationalities, was, we know, established. In 
Ireland this was never the case. The reason, doubt- 
less, is to be found in the far closer similarity of race 
in the former case than the latter. In Ireland the 
" Danes," as they are popularly called, were always 
strangers, heathen tyrants, hated and despised op- 
pressors, who retorted this scorn and hatred in the 



RAIDS OF THE NORTHMEN. 59 

fullest possible measure upon their antagonists. From 
the moment of their appearance down to the last we 
hear of them — as long, in fact, as the Danes of the 
seaport towns retained any traces of their northern 
origin — so long they continued to be the deadly foes 
of the rest of the island. 

Even where the Northmen accepted Christianity, 
it does not appear to have had any strikingly ame- 
liorating effect Thus we read that Godfrid, son of 
Sitric, embraced Christianity in 948, and in the very 
next year we discover that he plundered and burnt 
all the churches in East Meath, killing over a hundred 
people who had taken refuge in them, and carrying 
off a quantity of captives. Land-leaping, too, con- 
tinued in full force. "The godless hosts of pagans 
swarming o'er the Northern Sea," continued to arrive 
in fresh and fresh numbers from their inexhaustible 
Scandinavian breeding grounds — from Norway, from 
Sweden, from Denmark, even, it is said, from Ice- 
land. The eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries are, in 
fact, the great period all over Europe for the incursions 
of the Northmen — high noon, so to speak, for those 
fierce and roving sons of plunder, — "People," says 
an old historian quaintly, "desperate in attempting 
the conquest of other Realmes, being very sure to 
finde warmer dwellings anywhere than in their own 
homes." 




VIII. 

BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE. 

At last a time came for their oppression to be 
cut short in Ireland. Two valiant defenders sprang 
almost simultaneously into note. One of these was 
Malachy, or Melachlin, the Ard-Reagh and head of 
the O'Neills, the same Malachy celebrated by Moore 
as having " worn the collar of gold which he won 
from the proud invader." The other, Brian Boroimhe, 
commonly known to English writers as Brian Boru, 
a chieftain of the royal Dalcassian race of O'Brien, 
and the most important figure by far in Irish native 
history, but one which, like all others, has got so 
fogged and dimmed by prejudice and misstatement, 
that to many people his name seems hardly to convey 
any sense of reality at all. 

Poor Brian Boru ! If he could have guessed 
that he would have come to be regarded, even by 
some who ought to know better, as a sort of giant 
Cormoran or Eat-'em-alive-oh ! a being out of a fairy 
tale, whom nobody is expected to take seriously ; nay, 
as a symbol, as often as not, for ridiculous and in- 
flated pretension. No one in his own day doubted 
his existence ; no one thought of laughing at his 



SLAUGHTER OF THE DANES. 6l 

name. Had they done so, their laughter would have 
come to a remarkably summary conclusion ! 

Brian Boroimhe, Boruma, or Boru — his name is 
written in all three ways — was not only a real man, 
but he was, what was more important, a real king, 
and not a mere simulacrum or walking shadow of 
one, like most of those who bore the name in Ireland. 
For once, for the only time as far as its native history 
is concerned, there was some one at the helm who 
knew how to rule, and who, moreover, did rule. His 
proceedings were not, it must be owned, invariably 
regulated upon any very strict rule of equity. He 
meant to be supreme, and to do so it was necessary to 
wrest the power from the O'Neills upon the one hand, 
and from the Danes on the other, and this he pro- 
ceeded with the shortest possible delay to do. 

He had a hard struggle at first. Munster had been 
overrun by the Danes of Limerick, who had defeated 
his brother, Mahon, king of Munster, and forced him 
to pay tribute. Brian himself, scorning to submit to 
the tyrants, had taken to the mountains with a small 
band of followers. Issuing from this retreat, he with 
some difficulty induced his brother once more to 
confront the aggressors. An important battle was 
fought at Sulcost, near Limerick, in the year 968, 
in which the Danes were defeated, and fled back in 
confusion to their walls, the Munster men, under 
Brian, following fast at their heels, and entering at 
the same time. The Danish town was seized, the 
fighting men were put to the sword, the remainder 
fled or were enslaved. 

Mahon being some years afterwards slain, not by 



DEFEAT OF MALACHY. 63 

the Danes, but by certain treacherous Molloys and 
O'Donovans, who had joined themselves witli him, 
Brian succeeded to the sovereignty of Munster, and 
shortly afterwards seized upon the throne of Cashel, 
which, upon the alternate system then prevailing, was 
at that time reigned over by one of the Euganian 
house of Desmond. Having avenged his brother's 
murder upon the O'Donovans, he next proceeded to 
overrun Leinster, rapidly subdued Ossory, and began 
to stretch out his hands towards the sovereignty of 
the island. 

In the meantime the over-king, Malachy, had de- 
feated the Danes at the battle of Tara, and was con- 
sequently in high honour, stronger apparently then 
any of his predecessors had been. In spite of this 
Brian by degrees prevailed. With doubtful patriotism 
he left the Danes for a while unpursued, attacked 
Meath, overran and wasted Connaught, and returning 
suddenly burnt the royal stronghold of Tara. After 
a long and wearisome struggle, Malachy yielded, and 
allowed Brian to become Ard-Reagh in his place, 
retaining only his own ancestral dominions of Meath. 
He seems to have been a placable, easy-going mant 
" loving," say the annalists, " to ride a horse that had 
never been handled or ridden," and caring more for 
this than for the cares of the State. 

After this, Brian made what may be called a royal 
progress through the country, receiving the sub- 
mission of the chiefs and inferior kings, and forcing 
them to acknowledge his authority. In speaking of 
him as king of Ireland, which in a sense he un- 
doubtedly was, we must be careful of letting our 



64 BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE. 

imaginations carry us Into any exaggerated idea 
of what is meant by that word. His name, " Brian of 
the Tribute," is our safest guide, and enables us to 
understand what was the position of even the greatest 
and most successful king under the Celtic system. It 
was the exact opposite of the feudal one, and this 
difference proved the source in years to come of 
an enormous amount of misconception, and of fierce 
accusations of falsehood and treachery flung pro- 
fusely from both sides. The position of the over- 
king or Ard-Reagh was more nearly allied to that of 
the early French suzerain or the German emperor. 
He could call upon his vassal or tributary kings to 
aid him in war times or in any sudden emergency, 
but, as regards their internal arrangements — the 
government, misgovernment, or non-government of 
their several sub-kingdoms — -they were free to act as 
they pleased, and he was not understood to have any 
formal jurisdiction. 

For all that Brian was an unmistakable king, 
and proved himself to be one. He defeated the 
Danes again and again, reducing even those inveterate 
disturbers of the peace to a forced quiescence ; entered 
Dublin, and remained there some time, taking, say 
the annalists, " hostages and treasure." By the year 
1002 Ireland had a master, one whose influence 
made itself felt over its whole surface. For twelve 
years at least out of its distracted history the country 
knew the blessings of peace. Broken by defeat the 
Danish dwellers of the seaport towns began to turn 
their energies to the milder and more pacific activi- 
ties of trade. The ruined monasteries were getting 



I 



66 BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE. 

rebuilt ; prosperity was beginning to glimmer faintly 
upon the island ; the chiefs, cowed into submission, 
abstained from raiding, or confined their raids to 
discreeter limits. Fortresses were being built, roads 
made, and bridges repaired in three at least of the 
provinces. Another twenty years of Brian's rule and 
the whole future history of Ireland might have been 
a different one. 

It was not to be however. The king was now old, 
and the work that he had begun, and which, had he 
been followed by a successor like himself, might have 
been accomplished, was destined to crumble like a 
half-built house. The Danes began to stir again. A 
rebellion had sprung up in Leinster, the coast- line of 
which was strong-holded at several points with Danish 
towns. This rebellion they not only aided with their 
own strength, but further appealed for assistance to 
their kinsmen in Northumbria, Man, the Orkneys, and 
elsewhere, who responded by sending a large force 
under Brodar, a Viking, and Sigurd Earl of Orkney . 
to their aid. 

This force Brian gathered all his energies to 
oppose. With his own Munster clansmen, aided by 
all the fighting men of Meath and Connaught, with 
his five sons and with his old rival. King Malachy 
of Meath, fighting under his banner, he marched 
down to the strand of Clontarf, which stretches from 
the north of Dublin to the out-jutting promontory of 
Howth, and there, upon Good Friday, 1014, he en- 
countered his Leinster rebels and the Viking host of 
invaders, ten thousand strong it is said, and a great 
battle was fought, a battle which, beginning before 



THE DEFEAT OF THE VIKINGS. 67 

the dawn, lasted till the sun was beginning to 
sink. 

To understand tHe real importance of this battle, 
we must first fully realize to ourselves what a very 
old quarrel this was. For three long weary centuries 
Ireland had been lying bound and broken under the 
heel of her pagan oppressors, and only with great 
difficulty and partially had escaped within the last 
fifteen or sixteen years. Every wrong, outrage, and 
ignominy that could be inflicted by one people upon 
another had been inflicted and would most assuredly 
be inflicted again were this battle", now about to be 
fought, lost. 

Nor upon the other side were the motives much 
less strong. The Danes of Dublin under Sitric stood 
fiercely at bay. Although their town was still their 
own, all the rest of the island had escaped from the 
grasp of their race. Whatever Christianity they 
may occasionally have assumed was all thrown to 
the winds upon this great occasion. The far-famed 
pagan battle flag, the Raven Standard, was unfurled, 
and floated freely over the host. The War-arrow 
had been industriously sent round to all the neigh- 
bouring shores, peopled largely at that time with men 
of Norse blood. As the fleet swept south it had 
gathered in contingents from every island along the 
Scotch coast, upon which Viking settlements had been 
established. Manx men, too, and men from the Scan- 
dinavian settlements of Anglesea, Danes under Carle 
Canuteson, representatives, in fact, of all the old fight- 
ing pagan blood were there, and all gathered together 
to a battle at once of races and of creeds. 



68 BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE. 

On the Irish side the command had been given by 
Brian to Morrogh, his eldest son, who fifteen years 
before had aided his father in gaining a great victory 
over these same DubHn Danes at a place called 
Glenmama, not far from Dunlaven. The old king 
himself abstained from taking any part in the battle. 
Perhaps because he wished his son — who already had 
been appointed his successor — to have all the glory 
and so to fix himself yet more deeply in the hearts 
of his future subjects ; perhaps because he felt that 
his strength might not have carried him through the 
day ; perhaps — the annalists say this is the reason — 
because the day being Good Friday he preferred 
praying for his cause rather than fighting for it. 
Whatever the reason it is certain that he remained 
in his tent, which was pitched on this occasion not 
far from the edge of the great woods which then 
covered all the rising ground to the north-west 
of Dublin, beginning at the bank of the river 
Liffy. 

The onset was not long delayed. The Vikings 
under Sigurd and Brodar fought as only Vikings 
could fight. Like all battles of that period it resolved 
itself chiefly into a succession of single combats, which 
raged all over the field, extending, it is said, for over 
two miles along the strand. The Danish women, and 
the men left to guard the town, crowded the roofs, 
remaining all day to watch the fight. Sigurd of 
Orkney was killed in single combat by Thorlogh, the 
son of Morrogh, and grandson of Brian ; Armud and 
several of the other Vikings fell by the hand of 
Morrogh, but in the end the father and son were 



DEATH OF BRIAN. 6g 

both slain, although the latter survived long enough 
to witness the triumph of his own side. 

Late in the afternoon the Northmen broke and 
fled ; some to their ships, some into the town, some 
into the open country beyond. Amongst the latter 
Brodar, the Viking, made for the great woods, and 
in so doing passed close to where the tent of the 
king had been fixed. The attendants left to guard 
Brian had by this time one by one slipped away to 
join the fight, and the old man was almost alone, and 
kneeling, it is said, at the moment on a rug in the 
front of his tent. The sun was low, but the slanting 
beams fell upon his bent head and long white beard. 
One of Brodar's followers perceived him and pointed 
him out to his leader, saying that it was the king. 
" King, that is no king, that is a monk, a shaveling ! " 
retorte ! the Viking. " It is not, it is Brian himself," 
was the answer. 

Then Brodar caught his axe and rushed upon Brian. 
Taken unawares the king nevertheless rallied his 
strength which in his day had been greater than that 
of any man of his time, and still only half risen from 
his knees he smote the Viking a blow across the legs 
with his sword. The other thereupon lifted his battle- 
axe, and smote the king upon his head, cleaving it 
down to the chin, then fled to the woods, but was 
caught the next day and hacked into pieces by some 
of the infuriated Irish. 

So fell Brian in the very moment of victory, and 
when the combined league of all his foes had fallen 
before him. When the news reached Armagh, the 
bishop and his clergy came south as far as Swords, 



70 



BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE. 



4 

in Meath, where they met the corpse of the king 
and carried it back to Armagh, where he was buried, 
say the annalists, " in a new tomb " with much weep- 
ing and lamentation. 




CORMAC'S CHAPEL AND ROUND TOWER, ROCK OF CASHEL. 




IX. 



FROM BRIAN TO STRONGBOW. 



Whatever lamentations were uttered on this 
occasion were certainly not uncalled for, for a greater 
disaster has rarely befallen any country or people. 
Were proof wanted — which it hardly is — of that 
notorious ill-luck which has dogged the history of 
Ireland from the very beginning, it would be difficult 
to find a better one than the result of this same 
famous battle of Clontarf Here was a really great 
victory, a victory the reverberation of which rang 
through the whole Scandinavian world, rejoicing 
Malcolm of Scotland, who without himself striking 
a blow, saw his enemies lying scotched at his feet, 
so scotched in fact, that after the defeat of Clontarf 
they never again became a serious peril. Yet as 
regards Ireland itself what was the result ? The 
result was that all those ligaments of order which 
were beginning slowly to wind themselves round it, 
were violently snapped and scattered to the four 
winds. As long as Brian's grasp was over it Ireland 
was a real kingdom, with limitations it is true, but 
still with a recognized centre, and steadily growing 
power of combined and concerted action. At his 



STRUGGLE FOR THE SOVEREIGNTY. y^ 

death the whole body politic was once more broken 
up, and resolved itself into its old anarchic elements 
again. 

It would have been better far for the country had 
Brian been defeated, so that he, his son Morrogh, or 
any capable heir had survived, better for it indeed had 
he never ruled at all if this was to be end. By his 
successful usurpation the hereditary principle — always 
a weak one in Ireland — was broken down. The 
one chance of a settled central government was thus 
at an end. Every petty chief and princeling all 
over the island felt himself capable of emulating the 
achievements of Brian. It was one of those cases 
which success and only success justifies. Ireland 
was pining, as it had always pined, as it continued 
ever afterwards to pine, for a settled government ; 
for a strong central rule of some sort. The race of 
Hy.-Nial had been titular kings for centuries, but they 
had never held the sovereignty in anything but name. 
Pushing their claims aside, and gathering all power 
into his own hands Brian had acted upon a small 
stage the part of Charlemagne centuries earlier upon 
a large one. He had succeeded, and in his success 
lay his justification. With his death, however, the 
whole edifice which he had raised crumbled away, and 
anarchy poured in after it like a torrent. A struggle 
set in at once for the sovereignty, which ended by 
not one of Brian's sons but the deposed King Malachy 
being set upon the throne. Like his greater rival he 
was however by this time a very old man. His spirit 
had been broken, and though the Danes had been too 
thoroughly beaten to stir, other elements of disorder 



74 FROM BRIAN TO STRONGBOW. 

abounded. Risings broke out in two of the provinces 
at once, and at his death the confusion became con- 
founded. As a native rhyme runs : 

"After Malachy, son of Donald, 
JEach man ruled his own tribe, 
But no man ruled Erin." 

Henceforward throughout the rather more than a 
century and a half which intervened between the 
battle of Clontarf and the Norman invasion, Ireland 
remained a helpless waterlogged vessel, with an unruly 
crew, without rudder or compass, above all, without 
a captain. The house of O'Brien again pushed its 
way to the front, but none of Brian's descendants 
who survived the day of Clontarf seem to have 
shown a trace even of his capacity. A fierce feud 
broke out shortly after between Donchad, his son, 
and Turlough, one of his grandsons, and each 
successively caught at the helm, but neither suc- 
ceeding in obtaining the sovereignty of the entire 
island. After the last-named followed Murhertach 
also of the Dalcassian house, at whose death the rule 
once more swung round to the house of Hy.-Nial 
and Donald O'Lochlin reigned nominally until his 
death in 1121. Next the O'Connors, of Connaught, 
took a turn at the sovereignty, and seized possession 
of Cashel which since its capture by Brian Boroimhe 
had been the exclusive appanage of the Dalcassians. 
Another O'Lochlin, of the house of O'Neill, then 
appears prominently in the fray, and by 1156, seems 
to have succeeded in seizing the over-lordship of the 
island, and so the tale goes on — a wearisome one, 



A NEW STAGE. 



75 



unrelieved by even a transitory gleam of order or 
prosperity. At last it becomes almost a relief when 
we reach the name of Roderick O'Connor, and know 
that before his death fresh actors will have entered 
upon the scene, and that the confused and baffling 
history of Ireland will, at all events, have entered 
upon a perfectly new stage. 




ROUND TOWER AT DEVENISH. 



X. 



THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 



The invasion of Ireland by the Anglo-Normans" 
differs in several respects from other invasions and 
conquests, not the least singular feature about it 
being that nearly the whole of that famous band of 
knightly adventurers who took part in it, and to whose 
audacity it was in the iirst instance due, were more or 
less closely related to one another, either as brothers, 
nephews, uncles, or cousins. The connecting link 
between these variously - named relations was one 
Nesta, princess of South Wales, daughter of a Welsh 
king, Rice ap Tudor, a heroine whose adventures 
are of a sufficiently striking, not to say startling, 
character. By dint of a succession of alliances, some 
regular, others highly irregular, she became the ances- 
tress of nearly all the great Anglo-Norman families in 
Ireland. Of these the Fitzgeralds, Carews, Barrys, 
and Cogans, are descended from her first husband, 
Gerald of Windsor. Robert FitzStephen, who plays, as 
will presently be seen, a prominent part in the conquest, 
was the son of her second husband, Stephen, the 
Castlelan of Abertivy, while Robert and Meiler Fitz- 
Henry, of whom we shall also hear, are said to have 




WEST FRONT OF ST. CRONAN's CHURCH, ROSCREA. 
{From a Photograph.) 



78 THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

been the sons of no less a person than King Henry I. 
of England. 

Conspicuous amongst this band of knights and 
adventurers was one who was himself no knight, but 
a priest and the self-appointed chronicler of the rest, 

. Gerald de Barri — better known as Gerald of Wales, 
or Giraldus Cambrensis, who was the grandson of 
Nesta, through her daughter Angareta. 

I Giraldus is one of those writers whom, to tell the 
truth, we like a great deal better than they deserve. 
He is prejudiced to the point of perversity, and gullible 
almost to sublimity, uncritical even for an eminently 
uncritical age, accepting and retailing any and every 
monstrous invention, the more readily apparently in 
proportion to its monstrosity. For all that — despite 
his prejudices, despite even his often deliberate per- 
version of the truth, it is difficult to avoid a certain 
kindliness for him. To the literary student he is 
indeed a captivating figure. With his half-Welsh, half- 
Norman blood ; with the nimble, excitable, distinctly 
Celtic vein constantly discernible in him ; with a love 
of fighting which could hardly have been exceeded by 
the doughtiest of the knights, his cousins and brothers ; 
with a pen that seems to fly like an arrow across the 
page ; with a conceit which knows neither stint nor 
limit, he is the most entertaining, the most vividly 
alive of chroniclers; no historian certainly in any rigid 
sense of the word, but the first, as he was also unques- 
tionably the chief and prince of war correspondents. 
j Whether we like him or not, we at any rate cannot 
dispense with him, seeing that nearly everything we 
know of the Ireland of the Conquest, we know from 



GIRALDUS — THE IRISH CHURCH. 79 

those marvellous pages of his, which, if often ex- 
asperating, are at any rate never dull. In them, as 
in a mirror, we see how, when, and where the whole 
plan of the campaign was laid ; who took part in it ; 
what they said, did, projected; their very motives and 
thoughts — the whole thing stands out fresh and alive 
as if it had happened yesterday. 

There were no lack of motives, any of which would 
have been temptation enough for invasion. To the 
pious it took on the alluring guise of a Crusade. The 
Irish Church, which had obtained such glowing fame 
in its early days, had long since, as we have seen, 
grown into very bad repute with Rome. Despite 
that halo of early sanctity, she was held to be seri- 
ously tainted with heresy. She allowed bishops to 
be irregularly multiplied, and consecrated contrary 
to the Roman rule by one bishop only ; tithes and 
firstfruits were not collected with any regularity ; 
above all, the collection of Peter's pence, being the 
sum of one penny due from every household, was 
always scandalously in arrears, nay, often no attempt 
was made to collect it at all. She did many wrong 
things, but it may shrewdly be suspected that this 
was one of the very worst of them. 

It is not a little edifying at this juncture to find the 
Danes of Dublin amongst those who were enlisted upon 
the orthodox side. Cut off by mutual hatred rather 
than theological differences from the Church of Ireland, 
they had for some time back been regularly applying 
to Canterbury for their supply of priests. These priests 
upon being sent over painted the condition of Irish 
heterodoxy in tints of the deepest black for their own 




WEST DOORWAY OF FRESHFORD CHURCH, CO. KILKENNY. 
[From a Photograph.) 



DERMOT MCMURROUGH. 8l 

. countrymen. Even before this there had been grave 
complaints. Lanfranc, Anselm, St. Bernard of Clair- 
vaux, all had had their theological ire aroused against 
the Irish recusants. Many of the Irish ecclesiastics 
themselves seem to have desired that closer union 
with Rome, which could only be brought about by 
bringing Ireland under the power of a sworn son of 
the Church. Henry I. — little as that most secular- 
minded of monarchs cared probably for the more 
purely theological question — was fully alive to its 
value as supporting his own claims. He obtained 
from Pope Hadrian IV. (the Englishman Brake- 
speare), a Bull sanctioning and approving of the con- 
quest of Ireland as prompted by " the ardour of faith 
and love of religion," in which Bull he is desired to 
enter the island and therein execute " whatever shall 
pertain to the honour of God, and the welfare of the 
land." 

Fourteen years elapsed before the enterprise thus 
warmly commended was carried into effect. The 
story of Dermot McMurrough, king of Leinster, and 
his part in the invasion, has often been told, and does 
not, I think, need dwelling upon at any great length. 
He was a brutal, violent-tempered savage, detested 
in his own country, and especially by his unfortunate 
subjects in Leinster. How he foully wronged the 
honour of O'Rorke, a chieftain of Connaught ; how, 
for this and other offences, he was upon the accession 
of Roderick O'Connor driven away from Ireland ; how 
he fled to England to do homage to Henry, and seek 
his protection ; how, finding him gone to Aquitaine, 
he followed him there, and in return for his vows of 



82 THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

allegiance received letters authorizing the king's 
subjects to enlist if they choose for the Irish service ; 
how armed with these he went to Wales, and there 
succeeded in recruiting a band of mixed Norman and 
Norman- Welsh adventurers — all this is recorded at 
large in the histories. 

Of the recruits thus enlisted, the most important 
was Robert de Clair, Earl of Pembroke and Chep- 
stow, nicknamed by his contemporaries, Strongbow, 
whom Dermot met at Bristol, and won over by a 
double bribe — the hand, namely, of his daughter 
Eva, and the succession to the sovereignty of Leinster 
— a succession which, upon the Irish mode of election, 
he had, it may be observed, no shadow of right to 
dispose of. 

Giraldus, who seems to have been himself in 
Wales at the time, speaks sentimentally of the unfor- 
tunate exile, and describes him inhaling the scent of 
his beloved country from the Welsh coast, and feasting 
his eyes tenderly upon his own land : " Although the 
distance," he more prosaically adds, " being very great, 
it was difficult to distinguish mountains from clouds." 
As a matter of fact, Dermot McMurrough, we may 
be sure, was not the person to do anything of the 
sort. He was simply hungry — as a wild beast or a 
savage is hungry — for revenge, and would have plunged 
into any number of perjuries, or have bound himself to 
give away any amount of property he had no right to 
dispose of in order to get it. He could safely trust, 
too, he knew, to the ignorance of his new allies as 
to what was or was not a legal transfer in Ireland 
His purpose achieved, " inflamed," says Giraldus, 



ASSAULT ON WEXFORD. 83 

"with the desire to see his native land," but really 
the better to concoct his plans, he returned home, 
landing a little south of Arklow Head, and arriving 
at Ferns, where he was hospitably entertained during 
the winter by its bishop. The following spring, in 
the month of May, the first instalment of the invaders 
arrived under Robert FitzStephen, a small fleet of 
Welsh boats landing them in a creek of the bay of 
Bannow, where a chasm between the rocks was long 
known as " FitzStephen's stride." 

Here they were met by Donald McMurrough, son 
of Dermot, and ten days later drew up under the 
walls of Wexford, having so far encountered no 
opposition. 

In this old Danish town a stout fight was made. 
The townsfolk, no longer Vikings but simple traders, 
did what they could in their own defence. They 
burnt their suburbs, consisting doubtless of rude 
wooden huts ; shut the gates, and upon the first two 
assaults drove back the assailants. So violently were 
they repelled, "that they withdrew," Giraldus tells 
us, " in all great haste from the walls." His own 
younger brother, Robert de Barri, was amongst the 
wounded, a great stone falling upon his helmet and 
tumbling him headlong into one of the ditches, from 
the effects of which blow, that careful historian informs 
us incidentally, " Sixteen years later all his jaw teeth 
fell out ! " 

Next morning, after mass, they renewed the as- 
sault ; this time with more circumspection. Now 
there were at that time, as it happened, two bishops in 
the town, who devoted their energies to endeavouring 



84 THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

to induce the citizens to make peace. In this at- 
tempt they were successful, more successful than might 
have been expected with men descended from the 
old Land Leapers. Wexford opened its gates, its 
townsmen submitting to Dermot, who thereupon pre- 
sented the town to his allies, FitzStephen, true to his 
Norman instincts, proceeding forthwith to build a 
castle upon the rock of Carneg, at the narrowest point 
of the river Slaney, the iirst of that large crop of 
castles which subsequently sprang up upon Irish soil. 

The next sharers of the struggle were the wild 
Ossory clans, who gathered to the defence of their 
territory under Donough McPatrick, an old and 
especially hated enemy of Dermot's. The latter had 
now three thousand men at his back, in addition 
to his Welsh and Norman allies. The Ossory men 
fought, as Giraldus admits, with furious valour, but 
upon rashly venturing out of their own forests into 
the open, were charged by FitzStephen, whose horse- 
men defeated them, killing a great number, over two 
hundred heads being collected and laid at the feet of 
Dermot, who, " turning them over, one by one, to 
recognize them, lifted his hands to heaven in excess 
of joy, and with a loud voice returned thanks to God 
most High." So pious was Dermot ! 

After this, finding that the country at large_ was 
beginning to take some note of their proceedings, 
the invaders fel back upon Ferns, which they forti- 
fied according to the science of the age under the 
superintendence of Rob"ert FitzStephen. Roderick 
O'Connor, the Ard-Reagh, was by this time not 
unnaturally beginning to get alarmed, and had 



DECISION OF STRONGBOW. 85 

gathered his men together against the invaders. The 
winter, however, was now at hand, and a temporary 
peace was accordingly patched up ; Leinster being 
restored to Dermot on condition of his acknowledging 
the over-lordship of Roderick. Giraldus recounts at 
much length the speeches made upon both sides on 
this occasion ; the martial addresses to the troops, 
the many classical and flowery quotations, which last 
he is good enough to bestow upon the unlucky 
Roderick no less than upon his own allies. Seeing, 
probably, that all were alike imaginary, it is hardly 
necessary to delay to record them. 

The next to arrive upon the scene was Maurice 
Fitzgerald, half brother of Robert FitzStephen 
and uncle of Giraldus. Strongbow meanwhile was 
still upon the eastern side of the channel awaiting 
the return of his uncle, Hervey de Montmorency, 
whom he had sent over to report upon the condition 
of affairs. Even after Hervey's return bringing with 
him a favourable report, he had still the king's per- 
mission to gain. Early in 1170 he again sought 
Henry and this time received an ambiguous reply, 
which, however, he chose to interpret in his own 
favour. He sent back Hervey to Ireland, accom- 
panied by Raymond Fitzgerald, surnamed Le Gros, 
and a score of knights with some seventy archers. 
These, landing in Kilkenny, entrenched themselves, 
and being shortly afterwards attacked by the Danes 
of Waterford, defeated them with great slaughter, 
seizing a number of prisoners. Over these prisoners 
a dispute arose ; Raymond was for sparing their 
lives, Hervey de Montmorency for slaying. The 



86 THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

eloquence of the latter prevailed. "The citizens," 
says Giraldus, "as men condemned, had their limbs 
broken and were cast headlong into the sea and so 
drowned." 

Shortly after this satisfactory beginning, Strongbow 
himself appeared with reinforcements. He attacked 
Waterford, which was taken after a short but furious 
resistance, and the united forces of Dermot and the 
Earl marched into the town, where the marriage of 
the latter with Eva, Dermot's daughter, was cele- 
brated, as Maclise has represented it in his picture, 
amid lowering smoke and heaps of the dead and 
dying. 

Dermot was now on the top of the wave. With 
his English allies and his own followers he had a con- 
siderable force around him. Guiding the latter 
through the Wicklow mountains, which they would 
probably have hardly got through unaided, he de- 
scended with them upon Dublin, and despite the 
efforts of St. Lawrence O'Toole, its archbishop, to 
effect a pacific arrangement, the town was taken by 
assault. The principal Danes, with Hasculph, their 
Danish governor, escaped to their ships and sailed 
hastily away for the Orkneys. 

Meath was the next point to be attacked. O'Rorke, 
the old foe of Dermot, who held it for King Roderick, 
was defeated ; whereupon, in defiance of his previous 
promises, Dermot threw off. all disguise and pro- 
claimed himself king of Ireland, upon which Rode- 
rick, as the only retaliation left in his power, slew 
Dermot's son who had been deposited in his hands as 
hostage. 



SIEGE OF DUBLIN BY THE IRISH. 87 

It was now Strongbow's aim to hasten back and 
place his new lordship at the feet of his sovereign, 
already angry and jealous at such unlooked for and 
uncountenanced successes. He was not able however 
to do so at once. Hasculph the Dane returned 
suddenly with sixty ships, and a large force under a 
noted Berserker of the day, known as John the Mad, 
" warriors," says Giraldus, " armed in Danish fashion, 
having long breast-plates and shirts of mail, their 
shields round and bound about with iron. They were 
iron-hearted," he says, " as well as iron-armed men." 

In spite of their arms and their hearts, he is able 
triumphantly to proclaim their defeat. Milo de Cogan, 
the Norman governor of Dublin, fell upon his as- 
sailants suddenly. John the Mad was slain, as were 
also nearly all the Berserkers. Hasculph was brought 
back in triumph, and promptly beheaded by the con- 
querors. 

He was hardly dead before a new assailant, Godred, 
king of Man, appeared with thirty ships at the mouth 
of the Liffey. Roderick, in the meanwhile, had col- 
lected men from every part of Ireland, with the excep- 
tion of the north which stood aloof from him, and 
now laid siege to Dublin by land, helped by St. Law- 
rence its patriotic archbishop. Strongbow was thus 
shut in with foes behind and before, and the like dis- 
aster had befallen Robert FitzStephen, who was at 
this time closely besieged in his own new castle at 
Wexford. Dermot their chief native ally had recently 
died. There seemed for a while a reasonable chance 
that the invaders would be driven back and pushed 
bodily into the sea. 



■88 THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

Discipline and science however again prevailed. 
The besieged, excited both by their own danger and 
that of their friends in the south, made a desperate 
sally. The Irish army kept no watch, and was abso- 
lutely undrilled. A panic set in. The besiegers fled, 
leaving behind them their stores of provisions, and 
the conquerors thereupon marched away in triumph 
to the relief of FitzStephen. Here they were less 
successful. By force, or according to Giraldus, by a 
pretended tale of the destruction of all the other in- 
vaders, the Wexford men seized possession of him and 
the other English, and had them flung into a dungeon. 
Finding that Strongbow and the rest were not de- 
stroyed, but that on the contrary they were marching 
down on them, the Wexford men set fire to their own 
town and departed to an island in the harbour, carry- 
ing their prisoner with them and threatening if 
pursued to cut off his head. 

Foiled in this attempt, Strongbow hastened to 
Waterford, took boat there, and flew to meet the 
king, whom he encountered near Gloucester with a 
large army. Henry's greeting was a wrathful one. 
His anger and jealousy had been thoroughly aroused. 
Not unwarrantably. But for his promptness his 
headstrong subjects— several of them it must be re- 
membered of his own dominant blood — would have 
been perfectly capable of attempting to carve out a 
kingdom for themselves at his very gates. Happily 
Strongbow had found the task too large for his unaided 
energies, and, as we have seen, had barely escaped 
annihilation. He was ready, therefore, to accept any 
terms which his sovereign chose to impose. His sub- 



LANDING OF HENRY II. IN IRELAND. 



89 



mission appears to have disarmed the king. He al- 
lowed himself to be pacified, and after a while they 
returned to Ireland together. Henry H. landed at 
Waterford in the month of October, 1171. 




SOUTH WINDOW OF ST. CAIMIN'S CHURCH, INISMAIN. 



XL 



HENRY II. IN IRET,AND. 



This was practically the end of the struggle. The 
king had four thousand men-at-arms at his back, of 
whom no less than four hundred were knights. In 
addition his ships contained vast stores of provisions, 
a variety of war devices never before seen in Ireland, 
artizans for building bridges and making roads — a 
whole war train, in short. Such a display of force was 
felt to be irresistible. The chieftains one after the other 
came in and made their submission. Dermot Mc- 
Carthy, lord of Desmond and Cork, was the first to 
do homage, followed by Donald O'Brien, Prince of 
Thomond ; while another Donald, chieftain of Ossory, 
rapidly followed suit. The men of Wexford ap- 
peared, leading their prisoner with them by a chain, 
and presenting him as an offering to his master, who, 
first rating him soundly for his unauthorized proceed- 
ings, ordered him to be chained to another prisoner 
and shut up in Reginald's tower. Later, soothed by 
his own triumph, or touched, as Giraldus tells us, with 
compassion for a brave man, he, at the intercession of 
some of his courtiers, forgave and restored him to his 
possessions, reserving, however, the town of Wexford 
for himself. 



SUBMISSION OF THE IRISH. gi 

From Wexford Henry marched to Dublin, having 
first visited Tipperary and Waterford. The Danes at 
once submitted and swore allegiance ; so also did 
O'Carrol of Argial, O'Rorke of Brefny, and all the 
minor chieftains of Leinster ; Roderick O'Connor still 
stood at bay behind the Shannon, and the north also 
remained aloof and hostile, but all the other chieftains, 
great and small, professed themselves willing to be- 
come tributaries of the king of England. 

The idea of an Ard-Reagh, or Over-lord, was no new 
one, as we have seen, to any of them. Theoretically 
they had always acknowledged one, although,- practi- 
cally, he had rarely exercised any authority save over 
his own immediate subjects. Their feeling about 
Henry was doubtless the same. They were as willing 
to swear fealty to him as to Roderick O'Connor, more 
so in fact, seeing that he was stronger than Roderick, 
but that was all. To Henry and to his successors 
this recognition carried with it all the complicated 
dependence of feudalism, which in England meant 
that his land and everything else which a man pos- 
sessed was his only so long as he did service for it 
to the king. To these new Irish subjects, who had 
never heard of feudalism, it entailed nothing of the 
sort. They regarded it as a mere vague promise of 
adhesion, binding them at most to a general muster 
or " hosting " under his arms in case of war or some 
common peril. This was an initial misconception, 
which continued, as will be seen, to be a deeper and 
deeper source of confusion as the years went on. 

In the meanwhile Henry was established in Dublin, 
where he kept Christmas in high state, occupying a 



92 HENRY II. IN IRELAND, 

palace built in the native fashion of painted wicker- 
work, set up just outside the walls. Here he enter- 
tained the chiefs, who were naturally astonished at the 
splendour of his entertainments. " They learnt," 
Giraldus observes with satisfaction, " to eat cranes " — 
does this mean herons ? — " a species of food which they 
had previously loathed ; " and, in general, were suitably 
impressed with the greatness and glory of the con- 
queror. The bishops were most of them already warmly 
in his favour, and at a synod shortly afterwards held 
at Cashel, at which all the Irish clergy were repre- 
sented, the Church of Ireland was solemnly declared to 
be finally united to that of England, and it was laid 
down that, "as by Divine Providence Ireland has re- 
ceived her lord and king from England, so she should 
also submit to a reformation from the same source." 
The weather that winter was so rough that hardly 
a ship could cross the channel, and Henry in his new 
kingdom found himself practically cut off from his 
old one. About the middle of Lent, the wind veering 
at last- to the east, ships arrived from England and 
Aquitaine, bearers of very ill news to the king. Two 
legates were on their way, sent by the Pope, to inquire 
into the murder of Becket, and armed in case of an 
unsatisfactory reply with all the terrors of an interdict. 
Henry hastily made over the government of Ireland 
to Hugo de Lacy, whom he placed in Dublin as his 
representative, and sailed from Wexford upon Easter 
Monday. He never again revisited his new dominions, 
where many of the lessons inculcated by him — in- 
cluding possibly the delights of eating cranes — were 
destined before long to be forgotten. 




XII. 

EFFECTS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

Henry had been only six months in Ireland, but 
he had accomplished much — more certainly than any 
other English ruler ever accomplished afterwards 
within the same time. He had divided the ceded 
districts into counties ; had appointed sheriffs for 
them ; had set up three Law Courts — Bench, Pleas, 
and Exchequer ; had arranged for the going on circuit 
by judges ; and had established his own character for 
orthodoxy, and acquitted himself of his obligations 
to the papacy by freeing all church property from the 
exactions of the chiefs, and rigidly enforcing the 
payment of tithes. 

In a still more important point — that about which 
he was evidently himself most tenacious — his success 
was even more complete. He once for all put a stop 
to all danger of an independent lordship by forcing 
those who had already received grants of land from 
the native chiefs to surrender them into his hands, and 
to receive them back direct from himself, according to 
the ordinary terms of feudal tenure. 

That he had larger and more statesmanlike views 
for the new dependency than he was ever able to 



94 EFFECTS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. 

carry out there can be no question. As early as 1177 
he appointed his youngest son John king of Ireland, 
and seems to have fully formed the intention of 
sending him over as a permanent governor or viceroy, 
a purpose which the misconduct of that youthful 
Rehoboam, as Giraldus calls him, was chiefly instru- 
mental in foiling. 

It is curious to hear this question of a royal viceroy 
and a permanent royal residence in Ireland coming to 
the front so very early in the history of English rule 
there. That the experiment, if fairly tried, and tried 
with a man of the calibre of Henry himself, might 
have made the whole difference in the future of 
Ireland, we cannot, I think, reasonably doubt. Any 
government, indeed, so that it was central, so that it 
gathered itself into a single hand and took its im- 
press from a single mind, would have been better a 
thousand times than the miserable condition of half- 
conquest, half-rule, whole anarchy and confusion which 
set in and continued with hardly a break. 

This is one reason more why it is so much to be 
regretted that Ireland, save for a few years, had never 
any real king or central government of her own. Had 
this been the case, even if she had been eventually 
conquered by England — as would likely enough have 
been the case — the result of that conquest would 
have been different. There would have been some 
one recognized point of government and organization, 
and the struggle would have been more violent and 
probably more successful at first, but less chronic and 
less eternally renewed in the long run. As it was, all 
the conditions were at their very worst. No native ruler 



I 



LACtC OF UNITY AMONG THE IRISH. 95 

of the calibre of a Brian Boru could ever again 
hope to unite all Ireland under him, since long before 
he arrived at that point his enemies would have 
called in the aid of the new colonists, who would have 
fallen upon and annihilated him, though after doing 
so they would have been as little able to govern the 
country for themselves as before. 

This also explains what is often set down as the 
inexplicable want of patriotism shown by the native 
Irish in not combining more resolutely together 
against their assailants. It is true that they did not 
do so, but the fact is not referred to the right cause. 
An Englishman of the time of the Heptarchy had, if 
at all, little more patriotism, and hardly more sense 
of common country. He was a Wessex man, or a 
Northumbrian, or a man of the North or the East 
Angles, rather than an Englishman. So too in 
Ireland. As a people the Irish of that day can hardly 
be said to have had any corporate existence. They 
were O'Briens, or O'Neils, or O'Connors, or O'Fla- 
herties, and that no doubt in their own eyes appeared 
to be quite nationality enough. 

Unfortunately both for the country and for his own 
successors, Henry had no time to carry out his plans, 
and all that he had begun to organize fell away into 
disorder again after his departure. " That inconstant 
sea-nymph," says Sir John Davis, " whom the Pope 
had wedded to him with a ring," remained obedient 
only as long as her new lord was present, and once 
his back was turned she reverted to her own ways 
again. The crowd of Norman and Welsh adven- 
turers who now filled the country were each and 



g6 EFFECTS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION, 

all intent upon ascertaining how much of that 
country they could seize upon and appropriate for 
themselves. There were many gallant men amongst 
them, but there was not one apparently who had 
the faintest trace of what is meant by public spirit. 
Occupied only by their own interests, and struggling 
solely for their own share of the spoil, they could 
never really hold the country, and even those parts 
which they did get into their hands lapsed back after 
a while into the old condition again. 

The result was that the fighting never ended. 
The new colonists built castles and lived shut up 
in them, ruling their own immediate retainers with 
an odd mixture of Brehon and Norman law. When 
they issued forth they appeared clad from head to 
foot in steel, ravaging the country more like foreign 
mercenaries than peaceful settlers. The natives, 
driven to bay and dispossessed of their lands, fought 
too, not in armour, but, like the Berserkers of 
old, in their shirts, with the addition at most of a 
rude leather helmet, more often only with their hair 
matted into a sort of cap on their foreheads in the 
fashion known as the " gibbe," that " rascally gibbe " 
to which Spenser and other Elizabethan writers ob- 
ject so strongly. By way of defence they now and 
then threw up a rude stockade of earth or stone, 
modifications of the primitive rath, more often they 
made no defence, or merely twisted a jungle of 
boughs along the pathways to break the advance of 
their more heavily armed foes. The ideas of the 
two races were as dissimilar as their weapons. The 
instinct of the one was to conquer a country and 



TACTICS OF THE NORMANS AND THE IRISH. 97 

subdue it to their own uses ; the instinct of the other 
was to trust to the country itself, and depend upon its 
natural features, its forests, morasses, and so forth for 
security. The one was irresistible in attack, the 
other, as his conqueror soon learnt to his cost, practi- 
cally invincible in defence, returning doggedly again 
and again, and a hundred times over to the ground 
from which he seemed at first to have been so easily 
and so effectually driven off. 

All these peculiarities, which for ages continued to 
mark the struggle between the two races now brought 
face to face in a death struggle, are just as marked 
and just as strikingly conspicuous in the first twenty 
years which followed the invasion as they are during 
the succeeding half-dozen centuries. 




JblGUREy ON KILCARN FONT, MEATH. 




XIII. 

JOHN IN IRELAND. 

Henry had gone, and the best hopes of the new 
dependency departed with him never to return again. 
Fourteen years later he despatched his son John, 
then a youth of nineteen, with a train of courtiers, 
and amongst them our friend Giraldus, who appeared 
to have been sent over in some sort of tutorial or 
secretarial capacity. 

The expedition was a disastrous failure. The 
chiefs flocked to Waterford to do honour to their 
king's son. The courtiers, encouraged by their inso- 
lent young master, scoffed at the dress, and mockingly 
plucked the long beards of the tributaries. Furious and 
smarting under the insult they withdrew, hostile every 
man of them now to the death. The news spread ; 
the more distant and important of the chieftains 
declined to appear. John and his courtiers gave 
themselves up to rioting and misconduct of various 
kinds. All hopes of conciliation were at an end. 
A successful confederation was formed amongst the 
Irish, and the English were for a while driven bodily 
out of Munster. John returned to England at the 
end of eight months, recalled in hot haste and high 
displeasure by his father. 



SUCCESS OF JOHN. gg 

Twenty-five years later he came back again, this 
time as king, with a motley army of mercenaries 
gathered to crush the two brothers De Lacy, who 
for the moment dominated all Ireland — the one, 
Hugo, being Earl of Ulster, and Viceroy ; the other, 
Walter, Lord of the Palatinate of Meath. 

Among his many vices John had not at least that 
of indolence to be laid to his charge ! He marched 
direct from Waterford to Trim, the headquarters of 
the De Lacys, seized the castle, moved on next day 
to Kells, thence proceeded by rapid stages to Dun- 
dalk, Carlingford, Downpatrick, and Carrickfergus. 
Hugo de Lacy fled in dismay to Scotland. The chief- 
tains of Connaught and Thomond joined their forces 
with those of the king; even the hitherto indomitable 
O'Neil made a proffer of submission. Leaving a gar- 
ri.son at Carrickfergus, John marched back by Down- 
patrick and Drogheda, re-entered Meath, visited 
Duleek, slept a night at Kells, and so back to 
Dublin, where he was met by nearly every Anglo- 
Norman baron, each and all eager to exhibit their 
own loyalty. His next care was to divide their ter- 
ritory into counties ; to bind them over to supply 
soldiers when called upon to do so by the viceroy, and 
to arrange for the muster of troops in Dublin. Then 
away he went again to England. He had been in the 
country exactly sixty-six days. 

Unpleasant man and detestable king as he was, 
John had no slight share of the governing powers 
of his race, and even his short stay in Ireland 
did some good, enough to show what might have 
been done had a better man, and one in a little less 



lOO yOHN IN IRELAND. 

desperate hurry, remained to hold the reins. He 
had proved that, however they might ape the part, 
the barons were not as a matter of fact the ab- 
solute lords of Ireland ; that they had a master 
beyond the sea ; one who, if aroused, could make the 
boldest of them shake in his coat of mail. The lesson 
was not as well learnt as it ought to have been, but it 
was better at least than if it had not been learnt at all. 
At that age and in its then condition a strong 
ruler — native if possible, if not, foreign — was by far 
the best hope for Ireland. Such a ruler, if only for 
his own sake, would have had the genuine interests 
of the country at heart. He might have tyrannized 
himself, but the little tyrants would have been kept 
at bay. Few countries — and certainly Ireland was 
not one of the exceptions — were at that time ripe 
for what we now mean by free institutions. Free- 
dom meant the freedom of a strong government, one 
that was not at the beck of accident, and was not 
perpetually changing from one hand to another. 
The English people found this out for themselves 
centuries later during the terrible anarchy which 
resulted from the Wars of the Roses, and of their 
own accord put themselves under the brutal, but on 
the whole patriotic, yoke of the Tudors. In Ireland 
the petty masters unfortunately were always near ; 
the great one was beyond the sea and not so easily 
to be got at ! There was no unity ; no pretence of 
even-handed justice, no one to step between the op- 
pressed and the oppressor. And the result of all 
this is still to be seen written as in letters of brass 
upon the face of the country and woven into the 
very texture of the character of its people. 



XIV. 

THE LORDS PALATINE. 

The jealousy shown by Henry and his sons to- 
wards the earliest invaders of Ireland is doubtless 
the reason why Giraldus — for a courtier and an eccle- 
siastic upon his promotion — is so remarkably explicit 
upon their royal failings. The Geraldines especially 
seem to have been the objects of this not very 
unnatural jealousy, and the Geraldines are, on 
the other hand, to Giraldus himself, objects of an 
almost superstitious worship. His pen never wearies 
of expatiating upon their valour, fame, beauty, and 
innumerable graces, laying stress especially — and 
in this he is certainly borne out by the facts — upon 
the great advantage which men trained in the Welsh 
wars, and used all their lives to skirmishing in the 
lightest order, had over those who had had no pre- 
vious experience of the very peculiar warfare neces- 
sary in Ireland. " Who," he cries with a burst of 
enthusiasm, " first penetrated into the heart of the 
enemy's country ? The Geraldines ! Who have kept 
it in submission ? The Geraldines ! Who struck most 
terror into the enemy ? The Geraldines ! Against 
whom are the shafts of malice chiefly directed .'' The 



102 THE LORDS PALATINE. 

Geraldines ! Oh that they had found a prince who 
could have appreciated their distinguished worth ! 
How tranquil, how peaceful would then have been the 
state of Ireland under their administration !" 

Even their indignant chronicler admits however 
that the Geraldines did not do so very badly for 
themselves ! Maurice Fitzgerald, the eldest of the 
brothers, became the ancestor both of the Earls of 
Kildare and Desmond ; William, the younger, ob- 
tained an immense grant of land in Kerry from 
the McCarthys, indeed as time went on the lordship 
of the Desmond Fitzgeralds grew larger and larger, 
until it covered nearly as much ground as many a 
small European kingdom. Nor was this all. The 
White Knight, the Knight of Glyn, and the Knight 
of Kerry were all three Fitzgeralds, all descended 
from the same root, and all owned large tracts of 
country. The position of the Geraldines of Kildare 
was even more important, on account of their close 
proximity to Dublin. In later times their great keep 
at Maynooth dominated the whole Pale, while their 
followers swarmed everywhere, each man with a G. 
embroidered upon his breast in token of his allegi- 
ance. By the beginning of the sixteenth century their 
power had reached to, perhaps, the highest point ever 
attained in these islands by. any subject. Whoever 
might be called the Viceroy in Ireland it v/as the Earl 
of Kildare who practically governed the country. 

Originally there were three Palatinates — Leinster 
granted to Strongbow, Meath to De Lacy, and Ulster 
to De Courcy. To these two more were afterwards 
added, namely, Ormond and Desmond. The power of 



THE FIVE PALATINATES. IO3 

the Lord Palatine was all but absolute. He had his own 
Palatinate court, with its judges, sheriffs, and coroners. 
He could build fortified towns, and endow them with 
charters. He could create as many knights as he 
thought fit, a privilege of which they seem fully to 
have availed themselves, since we learn that Richard, 
Earl of Ulster, created no less than thirty-three upon 
a single occasion. For all practical purposes the 
Palatinates were thus simply petty kingdoms or prin- 
cipalities, independent in everything but the name. ' 

Strongbow, the greatest of all the territorial barons, 
left no son to inherit his estates, only a daughter, 
who married William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. 
Through her his estates passed to five heiresses, who 
married five great nobles, namely, Warrenne, Mount- 
chesny, De Vesci, De Braosa, and Gloucester. Strong- 
bow's Palatinate of Leinster was thus split up into 
five smaller Palatinates. As none of the new owners 
moreover chose to live in Ireland, and their revenues 
were merely drawn away to England, the estates were 
after awhile very properly declared forfeited, and went 
to the Crown. Thus the one who of all the adven- 
turers had cherished the largest and most ambitious 
hopes in the end left no enduring mark at all in Ireland. 

Connaught — despite a treaty drawn up between 
Henry I. and Cathal O'Connor, its native king — was 
granted by John to William FitzAldelm de Burgh 
and his son Richard, on much the same terms as Ulster 
had been already granted to De Courcy, on the under- 
standing, that is to say, that if he could he might 
win it by the sword. De Courcy failed, but the De 
Burghs were wilier and more successful. Carefully 



nv 



T04 THE LORDS PALATINI. 

fostering a strife which shortly after broke out be- 
tween the two rival princes of the house of O'Connor, 
and watching from the fortress they had built for 
themselves at Athlone, upon the Shannon, they seized 
an opportunity when both combatants were exhausted 
to pounce upon the country, and wrest the greater 
part of it away from their grasp. They also drove 
away the clan of O'Flaherty — owners from time im- 
memorial of the region known as Moy Seola, to the 
east of the bay of Galway — and forced them back 
across Lough Corrib, where they took refuge amongst 
the mountains of lar Connaught, descending continu- 
ally in later times in fierce hordes, and wreaking their 
vengeance upon the town of Galway, which had been 
founded by the De Burghs at the mouth of the river 
which carries the waters of Lough Corrib to the sea. 
To this day the whole of this region of Moy Seola 
and the eastern shores of Lough Corrib may be seen 
to be thickly peppered over with ruined De Burgh 
castles, monuments of some four or five centuries of 
uninterrupted fighting. 

At one time the De Burghs were by far the largest 
landowners in Ireland. Not only did they possess an 
immense tract of Connaught, but by the marriage 
of Richard de Burgh's son to Maud, daughter of Hugh 
de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, they became the nominal 
owners of nearly all Ulster to boot. It never was 
more, however, than a nominal ownership, the clutch 
of the O'Neills and O'Donnels being found practic- 
ally impossible to unloose, so that all the De Burghs 
could be said to hold were the southern borders of 
what are now the counties of Down, Monaghan, and 



THE BURKES AND THE ORMONDS. 105 

Antrim. When, too, William, the third Earl of Ul- 
ster, was murdered in 1333, his possessions passed to 
his daughter and heiress, a child of two years old. 
A baby girl's inheritance was not likely, as may be 
imagined, to be regarded at that date as particularly 
sacred. Ulster was at once retaken by the O'Neills 
and O'Connels. Two of the Burkes, or De Burghs, 
Ulick and Edmund, seized Connaught and divided it 
between them, becoming in due time the ancestors, 
the one of the Mayos, the other of the Clanricardes. 

Another of the great houses was that of the Or- 
monds, descended from Theobald Walter, a nephew 
of Thomas a Becket, who was created hereditary cup- 
bearer or butler to Henry 11. Theobald Walter 
received grants of land in Tipperary and Kilkenny, as 
well as at Arklow, and in 1391 Kilkenny Castle 
was sold to his descendant the Earl of Ormond by 
the heirs of Strongbow. The Ormonds' most marked 
characteristic is that from the beginning to the end 
of their career they remained, with hardly an excep- 
tion, loyal adherents of the English Crown. Their 
most important representative was the " great duke " 
as he was called, James, Duke of Ormond, who bore 
an important part in the civil wars of Charles I., and 
is perhaps the most distinguished representative of all 
these great Norman Irish houses, unless indeed one 
of the greatest names in the whole range of English 
political history — that of Edmund Burke — is to be 
added to the list, as perhaps in fairness it ought. 

Troublesome as it is to keep these different houses 
in the memory, it is hopeless to attempt without 
doing so to understand anything of the history of 



106 • THE LORDS PALATINE. 

Ireland. In England where the ruling power was vested 
first in the sovereign and later in the Parliament, 
the landowners, however large their possessions, rarely 
attained to more than a local importance, save of 
course when one of them chanced to rise to eminence 
as a soldier or a statesman. In Ireland the parliament, 
throughout nearly the whole of its separate existence, 
was little more than a name, irregularly summoned, 
and until the middle of the sixteenth century, repre- 
senting only one small corner of the country. The 
kings never came ; the viceroys came and went in a 
continually changing succession ; practically, therefore, 
the great territorial barons constituted the backbone 
of the country — so far as it could be said to have had 
any backbone at all. They made war with the native 
chiefs, or else made alliances with them and married 
their daughters. They raided one another's proper- 
ties, slew one another's kerns, and carried one another 
away prisoner. Sometimes their independent action 
went even further than this. The battle of Knocktow, 
of which we shall hear in due time, arose because the 
Earl of Kildare's daughter had quarrelled with her 
husband, the Earl of Clanricarde, and her father chose 
to espouse her quarrel. Two large armies were 
collected, nearly all the lords of the Pale and their 
followers being upon one side, under the banner of 
Kildare, a vast and undisciplined horde of natives 
under Clanricarde upon the other, and the slaughter 
is said to have exceeded 8,000. Parental affection is 
a very attractive quality, but when it swells to such 
dimensions as these it becomes formidable for the 
peace of a country ! 



XV. 



EDWARD BRUCE IN IRELAND. 



One of the greatest difficulties to be faced in the 
study of Irish history, no matter upon what scale, is 
to discover any reasonable method of dividing our 
space. The habit of distributing all historical affairs 
into reigns is often misleading enough even in Eng- 
land ; in Ireland it becomes simply ridiculous. What 
difference can any one suppose it made to the great 
bulk of the people of that country whether a Henry, 
whom they had never seen, had been succeeded by an 
Edward they had never seen, or an Edward by a 
Henry ? No two sovereigns could have been less alike 
in character or aims than Henry III. and Edward I., 
yet when we fix our eyes upon Ireland the difference 
is to all intents and purposes imperceptible. 

That, though he never visited the country, Edward I., 
like his great-grandfather, had large schemes for the 
benefit of Ireland is certain. Practically, however^ 
his schemes never came to anything, and the chief 
effect of his reign was that the country was so largely 
drawn upon for men and money for the support of 
his wars elsewhere as greatly to weaken the already 
feeble power of the Government, the result being that 



I08 EDWARD BRUCE IN IRELAND. 

at the first touch of serious trouble it all but fell to 
pieces. 

Very serious trouble indeed came in the reign of 
the second Edward. The battle of Bannockburn — 
the greatest disaster which ever befel the English 
during their Scotch wars — had almost as marked 
an effect on Ireland as on Scotland. All the ele- 
ments of disaffection at once began to boil and 
bubble. The O'Neills — ever ready for a fray, 
anci the nearest in point of distance to Scotland — 
promptly made overtures to the Bruces, and Edward 
Bruce, the victorious king's brother, was despatched 
at the head of a large army, and landing in 1315 near 
Carrickfergus was at once joined by the O'Neills, and 
war proclaimed. 

The first to confront these new allies was Richard 
de Burgh, the " Red Earl " of Ulster, who was twice 
defeated by them and driven back on Dublin. The 
viceroy, Sir Edmund Butler, was the next encoun- 
tered, and he also was defeated at a battle near 
Ardscul, whereupon the whole country rose like one 
man. Fedlim O'Connor, the young king of Con- 
naught, the hereditary chieftain of Thomond, and 
a host of smaller chieftains of Connaught, Munster, 
and Meath, flew to arms. Even the De Lacys and 
several of the other Norman colonists threw in their 
lot with the invaders. Edward Bruce gained another 
victory at Kells, and having wasted the country 
round about, destroying the property of the colonists 
and slaughtering all whom he could find, he returned 
to Carrickfergus, where he was met by his brother. 
King Robert, and together they crossed Ireland, de- 



RAVAGES OF THE SCOTS. I09 

iscending as far south as Cashel, and burning, pillag- 
ing, and destroying wherever they went. In 13 16 the 
younger Bruce was crowned king at Dundalk. 

Such was the panic they created, and so utterly 
disunited were the colonists, that for a time they 
carried all before them. It is plain that Edward 
Bruce — who on one side was descended both from 
Strongbow and Dermot McMurrough — fully hoped 
to have cut out a kingdom for himself with his sword, 
as others of his blood had hoped and intended before 
him. His own excesses, however, went far to prevent 
that. So frightfully did he devastate the country, 
and so horrible was the famine which he created, that 
many even of his own army perished from it or from 
the pestilence which followed. His Irish allies fell 
away in dismay. English and Irish annalists, unani- 
mous for once, alike exclaim in horror over his deeds. 
Clyn, the Franciscan historian, tells us how he burned 
and plundered the churches. The annals of Lough Ce 
say that " no such period for famine or destruction 
of men" ever occurred, and that people "used then to 
eat one another throughout Erin." " They, the Scots," 
says the poet Spenser, writing centuries later, " utterly 
consumed and wasted whatsoever was before left un- 
spoyled so that of all towns, castles, forts, bridges, 
and habitations they left not a stick standing, nor yet 
any people remayning, for those few which yet survived 
fledde from their fury further into the English Pale 
that now is. Thus was all that goodly country utterly 
laid waste." 

Such insane destruction brought its own punish- 
ment. The colonists began to recover from their 



no EDWARD BRUCE IN IRELAND. 

dismay. Ormonds, Kildares, and Desmonds be- 
stirred themselves to collect troops. The O'Connors, 
who with all their tribe had risen in arms, had been 
utterly defeated at Athenry, where the young king 
Fedlim and no less than 10,000 of his followers are 
said to have been left dead. Roger Mortimer, the new 
viceroy, was re-organizing the government in Dublin. 
The clergy, stimulated by a Papal mandate, had all 
now turned against the invader. Robert Bruce had 
some time previously been recalled to Scotland, and 
Sir John de Bermingham, the victor of Athenry, 
pushing northward at the head of 15,000 chosen 
troops, met the younger Bruce at Dundalk. The 
combat was hot, short, and decisive. The Scots were 
defeated, Edward Bruce himself killed, and his head 
struck off and sent to London. The rest hastened 
back to Scotland with as little delay as possible. The 
Scotch invasion was over. 

It was over, but its effects remained. From one 
end of Ireland to the other there was disaffection, 
anger, revolt. England had proved too weak or 
too negligent to interfere at the right time and in the 
right way, and although successful in the end she 
could not turn back the tide. There was a general 
feeling of disbelief in the reality of her government. 
A semi-national feeling had sprung up which tem- 
porarily united colonists and natives in a bond of 
self-defence. Norman nobles and native Irish chief- 
tains threw in their lot together. The English yeo- 
man class, which had begun to get established in 
Leinster and Munster, had been all but utterly 
destroyed by Edward Bruce, and the remnant now 



THE ENGLISH BECOME IRISH. Ill 

left the country in despair. The great English lords, 
with the exception of Ormond and Kildare, from 
this out took Irish names and adopted Irish dress 
and fashions. The two De Burghs, as already stated, 
seized upon the Connaught possessions of their 
cousin, and divided them, taking the one Galway and 
the other Mayo, and calling themselves McWilliam 
Eighter and McWilliam Oughter, or the Nether 
and the Further Burkes. So too with nearly all the 
rest. Bermingham of Athenry, in spite of his late 
famous victory over the Irish, did the same, calling 
himself McYorris ; FitzMaurice of Lixnaw became 
McMaurice ; FitzUrse of Louth, McMahon ; and so 
on through a whole list. 

Nor is it difficult to understand the motives which 
led to these changes. The position of an Irish 
chieftain — with his practically limitless powers of life 
and death, his wild retinue of retainers whose only 
law was the will of their chief — offered an irre- 
sistible temptation to men of their type, and had 
many more charms than the narrow and uninteresting 
rS/e of liegeman to a king whom they never saw, 
and the obeying of whose behests brought them harm 
rather than good. England had shown only too 
plainly that she had no power to protect her Irish 
colonists, of what use therefore, it was asked, for them 
to call themselves any longer English ? The great 
majority from that moment ceased to do so. Save 
within the "five obedient shires" which came to be 
known as the English Pale, " the king's writ no longer 
ran." The native Irish swarmed back from the moun- 
tains and forests, and repossessed themselves of the 



112 



THE LORDS PALATINE. 



lands from which they had been driven. No serious 
attempts were made to re-establish the authority of 
the law over three-fourths of the island. Within a 
century and a half of the so-called conquest, save 
within one small and continually narrowing area, 
•Ireland had ceased even nominally to belong to 
England. 




TRIM CASTLE ON THE BOYNE. 




XVI. 

THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY. 

It was not to be expected, however, that the larger 
country would for very shame let her possessions thus 
slip from her grasp without an effort to retain them, 
certainly not when a ruler of the calibre of an Edward 
III. came to the helm. Had his energies been able 
to concentrate themselves upon Ireland the stream 
which was setting dead against loyalty might even 
then have been turned back. The royal interest would 
have risen to the top of faction, as it did in England, 
and would have curbed the growing and dangerous 
power of the barons. That magic which surrounds 
the word king might — who can say that it would not ? 
— have awakened a sentiment at once of patriotism 
and loyalty. 

Chimerical as it may sound even to suppose such a 
thing, there seems no valid reason why it might not 
have been. No people admittedly are more intensely 
loyal by nature than the native Irish. By their fail- 
ings no less than their virtues they are extraordinarily 
susceptible to a personal influence, and that devotion 
which they so often showed towards their own chiefs 
might with very little trouble have been awakened in 



114 ^^^ STATUTE OF KILKENNY. 

favour of a king. It is one of the most deplorable of 
the many deplorable facts which stud the history 
of Ireland that no opening for the growth of such 
sentiment was ever once presented — certainly not in 
such a form that it would have been humanly possible 
for it to be embraced. 

Edward III. had now his chance. Unfortunately 
he was too busy to avail himself of it. He had too 
many irons in the fire to trouble himself much about 
Ireland. If it furnished him with a supply of fighting 
men — clean - limbed, sinewy fellows who could run 
all day without a sign of fatigue, live on a handful 
of meal, and for a lodging feel luxurious with an 
armful of hay and the sheltered side of a stone — it 
was pretty much all he wanted. The light-armed 
Irish troop did great things at Crecy, but they were 
never used at home. That Half-hold, which was the 
ruin of Ireland, and which was to go on being its ruin 
for many and many a century, was never more 
conspicuous than during the nominal rule of the 
strongest and ablest of all the Angevin kings. 

Something, however, for very shame he did do. In 
1 361 all absentee landowners, already amounting to 
no less than sixty-three, including the heads of several 
of the great abbeys, were summoned to Westminster 
and ordered to provide an army to accompany Lionel, 
Duke of Clarence, whom he had decided upon sending 
over to Ireland as viceroy. 

Clarence was the king's third son, and had married 
the only daughter and heiress of William de Burgh 
(mentioned a little way back as a baby heiress), and 
through his wife had become Earl of Ulster and the 



TWO SEPARATE IRELANDS. II5 

nominal lord of an enormous tract of the country 
stretching from the Bay of Galway nearly up to the 
coast of Donegal. Most of this had, however, already, 
as we have seen, been lost. The two rebel Burkes 
had got possession of the Galway portion, the 
O'Neills, O'Connors, and other chiefs had repossessed 
themselves of the North. So completely indeed was 
the latter lost that LJlster — nominally the patrimony 
of the Duchess of Clarence — is not even alluded to 
by her husband as part of the country over which 
his government could attempt to lay claim. 

The chief event of this visit was the summoning of 
a Parliament at Kilkenny, a Parliament made memor- 
able ever after by the passing of what is still known 
as the Statute of Kilkenny,^ This Statute, although it 
produced little effect at the time, is an extremely im- 
portant one to understand, as it enables us to realize 
the state to which the country had then got, and ex- 
plains, moreover, a good deal that would otherwise be 
obscure or confusing in the after history of Ireland. 

Two distinct and separate set of rules are here 
drawn up for two distinct and separate Irelands. 
One is for the English Ireland, which then included 
about the area of ten counties, though it afterwards 
shrank to four and a few towns ; the other is for the 
Ireland of the Irish and rebellious English, which 
included the rest of the island ; the object being, not 
as might be supposed at first sight, to unite these 
two closer together, but to keep them as far apart as 
possible ; to prevent them, in fact, if possible, from 
ever uniting. 

' 40 Edward III., Irish Statutes. 



Il6 THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY. w 

A great many provisions are laid down by this Act, 
all bearing the same aim. Marriage and fosterage 
between the English and Irish are forbidden, and 
declared to be high treason. So, too, is the supply of 
all horses, weapons, or goods of any sort to the Irish ; 
monks of Irish birth are not to be admitted into any 
English monastery, nor yet Irish priests into any 
English preferment. The Irish dress and the Irish 
mode of riding are both punishable. War with the 
natives is inculcated as a duty binding upon all good 
colonists. None of the Irish, except a certain number 
of families known as the " Five Bloods " {Quinqiie 
sanquines), are to be allowed to plead at any 
English court, and the killing of an Irishman is 
not to be reckoned as a crime. In addition to this, 
speaking the language of the country is made penal. 
Any one mixing with the English, and known to be 
guilty of this offence, is to lose his lands (if he has 
any), and his body to be lodged in one of the strong 
places of the king until he learns to repent and 
amend. 

The original words of this part of the Act are worth 
quoting. They run as follows : " Si nul Engleys ou 
Irroies entre eux memes encontre c'est ordinance et 
de cei soit atteint soint sez terrez e tenez s'il eit seizez 
en les maines son Seignours immediate, tanque q'il 
veigne a un des places nostre Seignour le Roy, et 
trove sufficient seurtee de prendre et user le lang 
Englais." 

One would like — merely as a matter of curiosity — to 
know what appliances for the study of that not easiest 
of languages were provided, and before what tribunal 



THE ENACTMENTS OF DESPAIR. I17 

the student had to prove his proficiency in it. When, 
too, we remember that English was still, to a great 
degree, tabooed in England itself ; that the official 
and familiar language of the Normans was French, 
that French of which the Statutes of Kilkenny are 
themselves a specimen, the difficulty of keeping within 
the law at this point must, it will be owned, have been 
considerable. 

" In all this it is manifest," says Sir John Davis, 
"that such as had the government of Ireland did 
indeed intend to make a perpetual enmity between 
the English and the Irish, pretending that the English 
should in the end root out the Irish ; which, the English 
not being able to do, caused a perpetual war between 
the two nations, which continued four hundred and 
odd years, and would have lasted unto the world's 
end, if in Queen Elizabeth's reign the Irish had not 
been broken and conquered by the sword." 

It is easy to see that the very ferocity — as it seems 
to us the utter and inconceivable ferocity — of these 
enactments is in the main a proof of the pitiable and 
deplorable weakness of those who passed them, and 
to this weakness we must look for their excuse, so far 
as they admitted of excuse at all. Weakness, especially 
weakness in high places, is apt to fall back upon 
cruelty to supply false strength, and a government 
that found itself face to face with an entire country in 
arms, absolutely antagonistic to and defiant of its 
authority, may easily have felt itself driven by sheer 
despair into some such false and futile exhibitions of 
power. The chief sufferers by these statutes were 
not the inhabitants of the wilder districts, who, for the 



Tl8 THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY, 

most part, escaped out of reach of its provisions, 
beyond that narrow area where the DubHn judges 
travelled their little rounds, and who were governed 
still — when governed at all— by the Brehon laws and 
Brehon judges, much as in the days of Brian Boru. 
The real victims were the unhappy settlers of the Pale 
and such natives as had thrown in their lot with 
them, and who were robbed and harassed alike by 
those without and those within. The feudal system 
was one that always bore hardly upon the poor, and 
in Ireland the feudal system was at its very worst. 
There was no central authority ; no one to interpose 
between the baronage and the tillers of the soil ; and 
that state of things which in England only existed 
during comparatively short periods, and under excep- 
tionally weak rulers, in Ireland was continuous and 
chronic. The consequence was that men escaped more 
and more out of this intolerable tyranny into the com- 
parative freedom which lay beyond ; forgot that they 
had ever been English ; allowed their beards, in defiance 
of regulations, to grow ; pulled their hair down into a 
" gibbes " upon their foreheads ; adopted fosterage, 
gossipage, and all the other pleasant contraband Irish 
customs ; married Irish wives, and became, to all 
intents and purposes. Irishmen. The English power 
had no more dangerous enemies in the days that were 
to come than these men of English descent, whose 
fathers had come over to found a new kingdom for her 
upon the western side of St. George's Channel. 



I 



XVII. 

RICHARD II. IN IRELAND. 

Richard the Second's reign is a more defi- 
nite epoch for the Irish historian than many more 
striking ones, for the simple reason of two visits 
having been paid by him to Ireland. The first of these 
was in 1394, when he landed at Waterford with 30,000 
archers and 40,000 men at arms, an immense army 
for that age, and for Ireland it was held an irresis- 
tible one. 

It was certainly high time for some steps to be 
taken. In all directions the interests of the colonists 
were going to the wall. Not only in Ulster, Munster, 
and Connaught, but even in the East of Ireland, the 
natives were fast repossessing themselves of all the 
lands from which they had been driven. A great 
chieftain, Art McMurrough, had made himself master 
of the greater part of Leinster, and only by a humili- 
ating use of " Black Rent," could he be kept at bay. 
The towns were in a miserable state ; Limerick, Cork, 
Waterford had all again and again been attacked, and 
could with difficulty defend themselves. The Wicklow 
tribes swarmed down to the very walls of Dublin, and 
carried the cattleoff from under the noses of the citizens. 



120 RICHARD II. IN IRELAND. 

The judges' rounds were getting yearly shorter and 
shorter. The very deputy could hardly ride half-a- 
dozen miles from the castle gates without danger 
of being set upon, captured, and carried off for 
ransom. 

Richard flattered himself that he had only to 
appear to conquer. He was keen to achieve some 
military glory, and Ireland seemed an easy field to 
win it upon. Like many another before and after him, 
he found the task harder than it seemed. The great 
chiefs came in readily enough ; O'Connors, O'Briens, 
O'Neills, even the turbulent McMurrough himself, some 
seventy-five of them in all. The king entertained them 
sumptuously, as Henry H. had entertained their an- 
cestors two centuries before. They engaged to be 
loyal, and to answer for the loyalty of their dependants 
— with some mental reservations we must conclude. 
In return for this submission the king knighted the 
four chiefs just named, a somewhat incongruous piece 
of courtesy it must be owned. Shortly after his 
knighthood. Art McMurrough, " Sir Art," was thrown 
into prison on suspicion. He was released before 
long, but the release failed to wipe out the affront, 
and the angry chief retired, nursing fierce vengeance, 
to his forests. 

Richard remained in Ireland nine months, during 
which he achieved nothing, and departed leaving 
the government in the hands of his heir-presump- 
tive, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, the grandson 
of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and, therefore, in right of 
his mother, Earl of Ulster, and the nominal owner of 
an immense territory, covering nearly a third of the 



1 



ART MCMURROUGH. 121 

island, barely one acre of which, however, remained in 
his hands. 

The king had not been gone long before Art 
McMurrough rose again. The young deputy was in 
Wicklow, endeavouring to carry out a projected 
colony. Hearing of this outbreak, he hastened into 
Meath. An encounter took place near Kells. Art 
McMurrough, at the head of his own men, aided by 
some wild levies of O'Tooles and O'Nolans, com- 
pletely defeated the royal army, and after the battle 
the heir of the English Crown was found amongst the 
slain. 

This Art McMurrough, or Art Kavangh, as he is 
sometimes called, was a man of very much more for- 
midable stamp than most of the nameless freebooters, 
native or Norman, who filled the country. His 
fashion of making his onset seems to have been 
tremendous. Under him the wild horsemen and "naked 
knaves," armed only with skeans and darts, sent terror 
into the breast of their armour-clad antagonists. One 
of the few early iliustrations of Irish history extant 
represents him as charging at breakneck pace down 
a hill. We are told that " he rode a horse without a 
saddle or housing, which was so fine and good that 
it cost him four hundred cows. In coming down the 
hill it galloped so hard that in my opinion," says a con- 
temporary writer, " I never in all my life saw hare, deer, 
sheep, or other animal, I declare to you for a certainty, 
run with such speed. In his right hand he bore a 
great dart, which he cast with much skill." ^ No 
wonder that such a rider, upon such a horse, should 

* " Metrical History of the Deposition of Richard II," 



122 RICHARD II. IN IRELAND. 

have struck terror into the very souls of the colonists, 
and induced them to comply with any demands, how- 
ever rapacious and humiliating, rather than have to 
meet him face to face in the field. 

The news of McMurrough's victory and of the death 
of his heir brought Richard back again to Ireland. He 
returned in hot wrath resolved this time to crush the 
delinquents. At home everything seemed safe. John 
of Gaunt was recently dead ; Henry of Lancaster still 
in exile ; the Percys had been driven over the border 
into Scotland. All his enemies seemed to be crushed 
or extinguished. With an army nearly as large as 
before, and with vast supplies of stores and arms, he 
landed at Waterford in 1399. 

This time Art McMurrough quietly awaited his 
coming in a wood not far from the landing-place. He 
had only 3,000 men about him, so prudently declined 
to be drawn from that safe retreat of the assailed. 
The king and his army sat down on the outskirts of 
the wood. It was July, but the weather was despe- 
rately wet. The ground was in a swamp, the rain 
incessant ; there was nothing but green oats for the 
horses. The whole army suffered from damp and 
exposure. Some labourers were hastily collected, and 
an attempt made to cut down the wood. This, too, 
as might be expected, proved a failure, and Richard, 
in disgust and vexation, broke up his camp, and with 
great difficulty, dragging his unwieldy army after him, 
fell back upon Dublin. 

The Leinster chief was not slow to avail himself of 
the situation. He now took a high hand, and demanded 
to be put in possession of certain lands he claimed 



RICHARD'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 123 

through his wife, as well as to retain his chieftaincy. 
A treaty was set on foot, varied by the despatch of a 
flying column to scour his country. In the middle of 
the negotiation startling news arrived. Henry of 
Lancaster had landed at Ravenspur, and all England 
was in arms. The king set off to return, but bad 
weather and misleading counsel kept him another 
sixteen days on Irish soil. It was a fatal sixteen 
days. When he reached Milford Haven it was to find 
the roads blocked, and to be met by the news that all 
was lost. The army of Welshmen, gathered by Salis- 
bury, had dispersed, finding that the king did not 
arrive. His own army of 30,000 men caught the 
panic, and melted equally rapidly. He tried to negotiate 
with his cousin, but too late. At Chester he fell 
into the hands of the victor, and, within a few weeks 
after leaving Ireland, had passed to a prison, and from 
there to a grave. He was the last English king to set 
foot upon its soil until nearly exactly three centuries 
later, when two rivals met to try conclusions upon the 
same blood-stained arena. 

From this out matters grew from bad to worse- 
Little or no attempt was made to enforce the law save 
within the ever-narrowing boundary of what about 
this time came to be known as the Pale. Outside, 
Ireland grew to be more and more the Ireland of 
the natives. Art McMurrough ruled over his 
own country triumphantly till his death, and levied 
tribute right and left with even-handed imparti- 
ality upon his neighbours. " Black Rent," indeed, 
began to take the form of a regularly recognized 
tribute ; O'Neill receiving £40 a year from the 



124 RICHARD II. IN IRELAND. 

county of Louth, O'Connor of Offaly, £60 from 
the county of Meath, and others in Hke proportion. 
In despair of any assistance from England some of 
the colonists formed themselves into a fraternity 
which they called the " Brotherhood of St. George," 
consisting of some thirteen gentlemen of the Pale 
with a hundred archers and a handful of horsemen 
under them. 

The Irish Government continued to pass Act after 
Act, each more and more ferocious as it became nore 
and more ineffective. Colonists were now empowered 
to take and behead any natives whom they found 
marauding, or whom they even suspected of any such 
intention. All friendly dealing with natives was to 
be punished as felony. All who failed to shave 
their upper lip at least once a fortnight were to be 
imprisoned and their goods seized. Englishmen 
who married Irish women were to be accounted guilty 
of high treason, and hung, drawn, and quartered at 
the convenience of the viceroy. Such feeble ferocity 
tells its own tale. Like some angry shrew the un- 
happy executive was getting louder and shriller the 
less Its denunciations were attended to. 




XVIII. 

THE DEEPEST DEPTHS. 

The most salient fact in Irish history is perhaps 
its monotony. If that statement is a bull it is one 
that must be forgiven for the sake of the truth it con- 
veys. Year after year, decade after decade, century 
after century, we seem to go swimming slowly and 
wearily on through a vague sea of confusion and 
disorder ; of brutal deeds and yet more brutal retali- 
ations ; of misgovernment and anarchy; of a confusion 
so penetrating and all-persuasive that the mind fairly 
refuses to grapple with it. Even killing — exciting as 
an incident — becomes monotonous when it is con- 
tinued ad infinitum, ■AX\di no other occurrence ever comes 
to vary its tediousness. Campion the Elizabethan 
historian, whose few pages are a perfect magazine 
of verbal quaintness, apologizes in the preface to his 
"lovyng reader, for that from the time of Cambrensis 
to that of Henry VIII." he is obliged to make short 
work of his intermediable periods ; " because that 
nothing is therein orderly written, and that the same 
is time beyond any man's memory, wherefore I 
scramble forward with such records as could be 
sought up, and am enforced to be the briefer." 



126 THE DEEPEST DEPTHS. 

" Scrambling forward " is, indeed, exactly what de- 
scribes the process. We, too, must be content " to 
be the briefer," and to " scramble forward " across 
these intermediate and comparatively eventless periods 
in order to reach what lies beyond. The age of the 
Wars of the Roses is one of great gloom and con- 
fusion in England ; in Ireland it is an all but com- 
plete blank. What intermittent interest in its 
affairs had been awakened on the other side of the 
channel had all but wholly died away in that pro- 
tracted struggle. That its condition was miserable, 
almost beyond conception, is all that we know for 
certain. In England, although civil war was raging, 
and the baronage were energetically slaughtering one 
another, the mass of the people seem for the most 
part to have gone unscathed. The townsfolk were 
undisturbed ; the law was protected ; the law officers 
went their rounds ; there seems even to have been 
little general rapine and pillage. The Church, still 
at its full strength, watched jealously over its own 
rights and over the rights of those whom it pro- 
tected. In Ireland, although there was nothing that 
approached to the dignity of civil war, the condition 
of the country seems to have been one of uninterrupted 
and almost universal carnage, pillage, and rapine. 
The baronage of the Pale raided upon the rest of the 
country, and the rest of the country raided upon the 
Pale, Even amongst churchmen it was much the 
same. Although there was no religious dissension, 
and heresy was unknown, the jealousy between the 
churchmen of the two rival races, seems to have been 
as deep as between the laymen, and their hatred of one 



THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 1.2'J 

another probably even greater. As -has been seen in 
a former chapter, no priest or monk of Irish blood 
was ever admitted into an English living or monastery, 
and the rule appears to have been quite equally 
applicable the other way. 

The means, too, for keeping these discordant ele- 
ments in check were ludicrously inefficient. The 
whole military establishment during the greater part 
of this century consisted of some 80 archers, and about 
40 " spears ; " the whole revenue amounted to a few 
hundred pounds per annum. The Parliament was a 
small and irregular body of barons and knights of the 
shires, with a few burgesses, unwillingly summoned 
from the towns, and a certain number of bishops and 
abbots, the latter, owing to the disturbed state of the 
country, being generally represented by their proctors. 
It was summoned at long intervals, and met some- 
times in Dublin, sometimes in Drogheda, at other 
times in Kilkenny, as occasion suggested. Even when 
it did meet legislation Vvas rarely attempted, and its 
office was confined mainly to the voting of subsidies. 
The country simply drifted at its own pleasure down 
the road to ruin, and by the time the battle of 
Bosworth was fought, the deepest depths of anarchy 
had probably been sounded. 

The seaport towns alone kept up some little 
semblance of order and self-government, and seem 
to have shown some slight capacity for self-defence. 
In 1412, Waterford distinguished itself by the spirited 
defence of its walls against the O'Driscolls, a piratical 
clan of West Cork, and the following year sent a ship 
into the enemy's stronghold of Baltimore, whose crew 



128 THE DEEPEST DEPTHS. 

seized upon the chief himself, his three brothers, his 
son, his uncle, and his wife, and carried them off in 
triumph to Waterford, a feat which the annals of the 
town commemorate with laudable pride. Dublin, too, 
showed a similar spirit, and fitted out some small 
vessels which it sent on a marauding expedition to 
Scotland, in reward for which its chief magistrate, 
who had up to that time been a Provost, was invested 
with the title of Mayor. " The king granted them 
license," says Camden, "to choose every year a Mayor 
and two baliffs." Also that its Mayor " should have a 
gilt sword carried before him for ever." 

Several eminent figures appear amongst the " ruck 
of empty names " which fill up the list of fif- 
teenth-century Irish viceroys. Most of these were 
mere birds of passage, who made a few experiments 
at government — conciliatory or the reverse, as the 
case might be — and so departed again. Sir John 
Talbot, the scourge of France, and antagonist of the 
Maid of Orleans, was one of these. From all ac- 
counts he seems to have quite kept up his character 
in Ireland. The native writers speak of him as a 
second Herod. The colonist detested him for his 
exactions, while his soldiery were a scourge to every 
district they were quartered upon. He rebuilt the 
bridge of Athy, however, and fortified it so as to defend 
that portion of the Pale, and succeeded in keeping 
the O'Moores, O'Byrnes, and the rest of the native 
marauders to some degree at bay. 

In 1449, Richard, Duke of York, was sent to Ireland 
upon a sort of honorary exile. He took the oppo- 
site tack of conciliation. Although Ormond was a 



RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK. I2g 

•prominent member of the Lancastrian party, he at 
once made gracious overtures to him. Desmond, too, 
he won over by his courtesy, and upon the birth of 
his son George — afterwards the luckless Duke of 
Clarence — the rival earls acted as joint sponsors, 
and when, in 145 1, he left Ireland, he appointed 
Ormond his deputy and representative. 

Nine years later he came back, this time as a fugi- 
tive. The popularity which he had already won stood 
him then in good stead. Seizing upon the govern- 
ment, he held it in the teeth of the king and Parlia- 
ment for more than a year. The news of the battle 
of Northampton tempted him to England. His 
son, the Earl of March, had been victorious, and 
Henry VI. was a prisoner. He was not destined, 
however, to profit by the success of his own side. In 
a temporary Lancastrian triumph he was outnum- 
bered, and killed by the troops of Queen Margaret at 
Wakefield. 

His Irish popularity descended to his son. A 
considerable number of Irish Yorkist partisans, led 
by the Earl of Kildare, fought beside the latter 
at the decisive and sanguinary battle of Towton, 
at which battle the rival Earl of Ormond, leader of 
the Irish Lancastrians, was taken prisoner, beheaded 
by the victors, and all his property attained, a blow 
from which the Butlers were long in recovering. 

No other great Irish house suffered seriously. In 
England the older baronage were all but utterly swept 
away by the Wars of the Roses, only a few here and 
there surviving its carnage. In Ireland it was not so. 
A certain number of Anglo-Norman names disappear 



130 THE DEEPEST DEPTHS. 

at this point from its annals, but the greater num- 
ber of those with which the reader has become 
familiar continue to be found in their now long- 
established homes. The Desmonds and De Burghs 
still reigned undisputed and unchallenged over their 
, several remote lordships. Ulster, indeed, had long 
since become wholly Irish, but within the Pale the 
minor barons of Norman descent — Fingals, Gorman- 
stons, Dunsanys, Trimbelstons and others — remained 
where their Norman fathers had established them- 
selves, and where their descendants for the most part 
may be found still. The house of Kildare had grown 
in strength during the temporary collapse of its rival, 
and from this out for nearly a century towers high 
over every other Irish house. The Duke of York 
was the last royal viceroy who actually held the 
sword. Others, though nominated, never came over, 
and in their absence the Kildares remained omnipo- 
tent, generally as deputies, and even when that office 
was for a while confided to other hands, their power 
v/as hardly diminished. Only the barren title of Lord- 
Lieutenant was withheld, and was as a rule bestowed 
upon some royal personage, several times upon child- 
ren, once in the case of Edward IV.'s son upon an 
actual infant in arms. 

In 1480, Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, called by 
his own following, Geroit Mor, or Gerald the Great, 
became deputy, and, from that time forward under 
five successive kings, and during a period of 33 years, 
he " reigned " with hardly an interval until his death 

in 1513- 

Geroit Mor is perhaps the most important chief 



GEROIT MOR. 



131 



governor who ruled Ireland upon thorough-going 
Irish principles. " A mighty man of stature, full of 
honour and courage." Stanihurst describes him as 
being " A knight in valour ; " and " princely and 
religious in his words and judgments " is the flatter- 
ing report of the " Annals of the Four Masters." 
" His name awed his enemies more than his army,'' 
says Camden. " The olde earle being soone hotte and 
soone cold was of the Englishe well beloved," is 
another report. "In hys warres hee used a retchlesse 
(reckless) kynde of diligence, or headye careless- 
nesse," is a less strong commendation, but probably 
not less true. 

He was a gallant man unquestionably, and as far 
as can be seen an honest and a well-intentioned one, 
but his policy was a purely personal, or at most a 
provincial, one. As for the interests of the country 
at large they seem hardly to have come within his 
ken. That fashion of looking at the matter had now 
so long been the established rule that it had probably 
ceased indeed to be regarded as a failing. 




FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT, MEATH. 



XIX. 



THE KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 



When the Battle of Bosworth brought the adherents 
of the Red Rose back to triumph, Gerald Mor was 
still Lord-deputy. He was not deposed, however, on 
that account, although the Butlers were at once rein- 
stated in their own property, and Sir Thomas Butler 
was created Earl of Ormond. According to a pre- 
cedent now prevailing for several reigns, the Lord- 
Lieutenancy was conferred upon the Duke of Bed- 
ford, the king's uncle, Kildare continuing, however, 
practically to exercise all the functions of govern- 
ment as his deputy. 

A dangerous plot, started by the discomfited 
Yorkist faction, broke out in Ireland in 1487. An 
impostor, named Lambert Simnel, was sent by the 
Duchess of Burgundy, and trained to simulate the 
son of Clarence who, it will be remembered, had been 
born in Ireland, and whose son was therefore supposed 
to have a special claim on that country. Two thou- 
sand German mercenaries were sent with him to 
support his pretensions. 

This Lambert Simnel seems to have been a youth 
of some talent, and to have filled his ugly im- 



134 ^^^ KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 

poster's j^o/e with as much grace as it admitted of 
Bacon, in his history of the reign, tells us that 
" he was a comely youth, not without some extra- 
ordinary dignity of grace and aspect." The fashion 
in which he retailed his sufferings, pleaded his youth, 
and appealed to the proverbial generosity of the Irish 
people, to protect a hapless prince, robbed of his 
throne and his birthright, seems to have produced 
an immense effect. Kildare, there is reason to 
suspect, was privy to the plot, but of others there is 
no reason to think this, and with a single exception — • 
that of the Earl of Howth — all the lords of the Pale 
and many of the bishops, including the Archbishop of 
Dublin, seem to have welcomed the lad — he was only 
fifteen^with the utmost enthusiasm, an enthusiasm 
which Henry's production of the real son of Clarence 
had no effect at all in diminishing. 

Lambert Simnel was conducted in high state to 
Dublin, and there crowned in the presence of the 
Earl of Kildare, the chancellor, and other State officers. 
The' crown used for the purpose was taken off the 
head of a statue of The Virgin in St. Mary's Abbey, 
and — a quainter piece of ceremonial still — the youth- 
ful monarch was, after the ceremony, hoisted upon 
the shoulders of the tallest man in Ireland, " Great 
Darcy of Flatten," and, in this position, promenaded 
through the streets of Dublin so as to be seen by the 
people, after which he was taken back in triumph to 
the castle. 

His triumph was not, however, long-lived. Em- 
boldened by this preliminary success, his partizans 
took him across the sea and landed with a considerable 



DEFEAT OF SIMNEL. I35 

force at Fondray, in Lancashire, the principal leaders 
on this occasion being the Earl of Lincoln, Thomas 
Fitzgerald, brother to the Earl of Kildare, Lord 
Lovell, and Martin Schwartz, the commander of the 
German forces. 

The enthusiasm that was expected to break out 
on their arrival failed however to come off " Their 
snowballs," as Bacon puts it, " did not gather as 
they went." A battle was fought at Stoke, at 
which 4,000 of the rebels fell, including Thomas Fitz- 
gerald, the Earl of Lincoln, and the German general 
Martin Schwartz, while Lambert Simnel with his 
tutor, Simon the priest, fell into the king's hands, who 
spared their lives, and appointed the former to the 
office of turnspit, an office which he held for a 
number of years, being eventually promoted to that 
of falconer, and as guardian of the king's hawks he 
lived and died. 

He was not the only culprit whom Henry was 
willing to pardon. Clemency indeed was his strong 
point, and he extended it without stint again 'and 
again to his Irish rebels. He despatched Sir Richard 
Edgecombe, a member of the royal household* 
shortly afterwards upon a mission of conciliation 
to Ireland. The royal pardon was to be extended to 
Kildare and the rest of the insurgents on condition 
of their submission. Kildare's pride stood out for a 
while against submission on any conditions, but the 
Royal Commissioner was firm, and the terms, easy ones 
it must be owned, were at last accepted, and an oath 
of allegiance sworn to. Kildare, thereupon, was con- 
firmed in his deputyship, and Sir Richard Edgecombe 



136 THE KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 

having first partaken of "much excellent good cheere" 
at the earl's castle at Maynooth, returned peaceably 
to England. 

The Irish primate, one of the few ecclesiastics 
who had refused to support the impostor, was then, 
as it happened, in London, and placed strongly before 
the king the impolicy of continuing Kildare in 
office. Apparently his remonstrance had its effect, 
for Henry issued a summons to the deputy and 
all the Irish nobility to attend at Court, one which 
was obeyed with hardly an exception. A dramatic 
turn is given to this visit by the fact that Lambert 
Simnel, the recently crowned king, was promoted for 
the occasion to serve wine at dinner to his late Irish 
subjects. The poor scullion did his office with what 
grace he might, but no one, it is said, would touch the 
wine until it came to the turn of the Earl of Howth, 
the one Irish peer, as we have seen, who had declined 
to accept the impostor in his heyday of success. "Nay, 
but bring me the cup if the wine be good," quoth he, 
being a merry gentleman, " and I shall drink it both 
for its sake and mine own, and for thee also as thou 
art, so I leave thee, a poor innocent ! " 

Howth, whose speech is recorded by his own family 
chronicler, received three hundred pounds as a reward 
for his loyalty, the rest returned as they came, lucky, 
they must have felt under the circumstances, in 
returning at all, 

Simnel was not the last Yorkist impostor who 
found credit and an asylum in Ireland. Peterkin, 
or Perkin Warbeck was the next whom the inde- 
fatigable Duchess of Burgundy started on the same 



i 



PERKIN WARBECK. I37 

stage and upon the same errand. This time the prince 
supposed to be personated was the youngest son 
of Edward IV., one of the two princes murdered in 
the tower. He is also occasionally spoken of as a 
son of Clarence, and sometimes as an illegitimate son 
of Richard III. — any royal personage, in fact, whose 
age happened to suit. In spite of the slight ambiguity 
which overhung his princely origin, he was received 
with high honour in Cork, and having appealed to the 
Earls of Desmond and Kildare, was accepted by the 
former with open arms. "You Irish would crown 
apes ! " Henry afterwards said, not indeed unwar- 
rantably. This time Kildare was more cautious? 
though his brother. Sir James Fitzgerald, warmly 
espoused the cause of the impostor. Perkin War- 
beck remained in Ireland about a year, when he was 
invited to France and, for a while, became the centre 
of the disaffected Yorkists there. He was a very poor 
specimen of the genus impostor, and seems even to 
have been destitute of the commonplace quality of 
courage. 

In spite of the unusual prudence displayed by him 
on this occasion, Kildare was, in 1497, removed 
from the deputyship, which was for a time vested 
in Walter Fitzsimons, Archbishop of Dublin, a declared 
enemy of the Geraldines. Sir James Ormond who 
represented his brother, the earl, was appointed Lord 
Treasurer in place of the Baron of Portlester, Kildare's 
uncle, who had held the office for thirty-eight years. 
Fresh quarrels thereupon broke out between the Butlers 
and the rival house, and each harassed the lands of 
the other in the usual approved style. A meeting was 



138 THE KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 

at last arranged to take place in St. Patrick's Cathe- 
dral between the two leaders, but a riot breaking out 
Sir James barred himself up in alarm in the Chapter 
House. Kildare arriving at the door with offers of 
peace, a hole had to be cut to enable the two to com- 
. municate. Sir James fearing treachery declined to put 
out his hand, whereupon Kildare boldly thrust in his, 
and the rivals shook hands. The door was then 
opened ; they embraced, and for a while peace was 
patched up. The door, with the hole still in it, was 
extant up to the other day. 

The quarrels between these two great houses were 
interminable, and kept the whole Pale and the greater 
part of Ireland in eternal hot water. Their war- 
cries of" Crom-a-Boo" and " Butler-a-Boo" filled the 
very air, and had to be solemnly prohibited a few years 
later by special Act of Parliament. By 1494 the 
complaints against Kildare had grown so loud and so 
long that the king resolved upon a new experiment, 
that of sending over an Englishman to fill the post, 
and Sir Edward Poynings was pitched upon as the 
most suitable for the purpose. 

He arrived accompanied by a force of a thousand 
men-at-arms, and five or six English lawyers, who 
were appointed to fill the places of chancellor^ 
treasurer, and other offices from which the present 
occupiers, most of whom had been concerned either 
in the Warbeck or Simnel rising, were to be ejected. 

It was at a parliament summoned at Drogheda^ 
whither this new deputy had gone to quell a northern 
rising, that the famous statute known as Poynings' 
Act was passed, long a rock of offence, and even 



POYNINGS' ACT — KILDARE IN ENGLAND. 139 

still a prominent feature in Irish political contro- 
versy. 

Many of the statutes passed by this Parliament — 
such as the one just mentioned forbidding war cries, 
others forbidding the levying of private forces, for- 
bidding the " country's curse " Coyne and livery, and 
other habitual exactions were undoubtedly necessary 
and called for by the circumstances of the case. 
The only ones now remembered however are the 
following. First, that no parliament should be sum- 
moned by the deputy's authority without the king's 
special license for that purpose. Secondly, that all 
English statutes should henceforward be regarded 
as binding upon Ireland ; and thirdly, that all Acts 
referring to Ireland must be submitted first to the 
king and Privy Council, and that, when returned by 
them, the Irish Parliament should have no power to 
modify them further. This, as will be seen, practically 
reduced the latter to a mere court for registering 
laws already passed elsewhere, passed too often 
without the smallest regard to the special require- 
ments of the country. A -condition of subserviency 
from which it only escaped again for a short time 
during the palmy days of the eighteenth century. 

By this same parliament Kildare was attained — 
rather late in the day — on the ground of conspiracy, 
and sent prisoner to London. He lay a year in 
prison, and was then brought to trial, and allowed to 
plead his own cause in the king's presence. The 
audacity, frank humour, and ready repartee of his 
great Irish subject seems to have made a favourable 
impression upon Henry, who must himself have had 



140 THE KiLDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 

more sense of humour than Enghsh historians give 
us any impression of. One of the principal charges 
against the earl was that he had burned the church 
at Cashel. According to the account given in the 
Book of Howth he readily admitted the charge, but 
declared positively that he would never have thought 
of doing so had he not been solemnly assured that 
the archbishop was at the time inside it. The auda- 
city of this defence is not a little heightened by 
the fact that the archbishop in question was at the 
moment sitting in court and listening to it. 

Advised by the king to provide himself with a good 
counsel, " By St. Bride " — his favourite oath — said he, 
" I know well the fellow I would have, yea, and the 
best in England, too ! " Asked who that might be. 
"Marry, the king himself" The note of comedy 
struck at the beginning of the trial lasted to the end. 
The earl's ready wit seems to have dumbfounded his 
accusers, who were not unnaturally indignant at so 
unlooked for a result. " All Ireland," they swore, 
solemnly, " could not govern the Earl of Kildare." 
" So it appears," said Henry. " Then let the Earl of 
Kildare govern all Ireland." 

Whether the account given by Irish historians of 
this famous trial is to be accepted literally or not, the 
result, at any rate, was conclusive. The king seems to 
have felt, that Kildare was less dangerous as sheep-dog 
— even though a head-strong one — than as wolf, even 
a wolf in a cage. He released him and restored him 
to his command. Prince Henry, according to custom, 
becoming nominally Lord-Lieutenant, with Kildare as 
deputy under him. The earl's wife had lately died, 



RETURN OF KILDARE TO IRELAND. 14I 

and before leaving England he strengthened himself 
against troubles to come by marrying Elizabeth St. 
John, the king's cousin, and having left his son Gerald 
behind as hostage for his good behaviour, sailed 
merrily home to Ireland. 

Perkin Warbeck meanwhile had made another 
foray upon Munster, where he was supported by 
Desmond, and repulsed with no little ignominy by 
the townsfolk of Waterford ; after which he again 
departed and was seen no more upon that stage. 
Kildare — whose own attainder was not reversed until 
after his arrival in Ireland — presided over a parlia- 
ment, one of whose first acts was to attaint Lord 
Barrymore and the other Munster gentlemen for their 
share in this rising. He .also visited Cork and Kin- 
sale, leaving a garrison behind him ; rebuilt several 
towns in Leinster which had been ruined in a succes- 
sion of raids ; garrisoned the borders of the Pale 
with new castles, and for the first time in its 
history brought ordnance into Ireland, which he 
employed in the siege of Belrath Castle. A factor 
destined to work a revolution upon Irish traditional 
modes of warfare, and upon none with more fatal 
effect than upon the house of Fitzgerald itself. 

That Kildare's authority, even during this latter 
period of his government was wholly exercised in 
the cause of tranquility it would be certainly rash to 
assert. At the same time it may be doubted whether 
any better choice was open to the king — short of 
some very drastic policy indeed. That he used his 
great authority to overthrow his own enemies and to 
aggrandize his own house goes almost without saying 



142 THE KILDARES IN THE ASCENDANT. 

The titular sovereignty of the king could hope to count 
for little beside the real sovereignty of the earl, and 
the house of Kildare naturally loomed far larger and 
more imposingly in Ireland than the house of Tudor. 
Despotism in some form was the only practical and 
possible government, and Earl Gerald was all but 
despotic within the Pale, and even outside it was at 
any rate stronger than any other single individual. 
The Desmond Geraldines lived remote, the Butlers, 
who came next to the Geraldines in importance, held 
Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary, but were cut off 
from Dublin by the wild mountains of Wicklow, and 
the wilder tribes of O'Tooles, and O'Brynes who held 
them. They were only able to approach it through 
Kildare, and Kildare was the head-quarters of the 
Geraldines. 

One of Earl Gerald's last, and, upon the whole, his 
most remarkable achievement was that famous expedi- 
tion which ended in the battle of Knocktow already 
alluded to in an earlier chapter, in which a large num- 
ber of the lords of the Pale, aided by the native allies 
of the deputy, took part. In this case there was 
hardly a pretence that the expedition was undertaken 
in the king's service. It was a family quarrel pure 
and simple, between the deputy and his son-in-law 
McWilliam, of Clanricarde. The native account 
tells us that the latter's wife " was not so used as the 
earl (her father) could be pleased with," whereupon 
" he swore to be revenged upon this Irishman and all 
his partakers." The notion of a Fitzgerald stigma- 
tizing a De Burgh as an Irishman is delightful, and 
eminently characteristic of the sort of wild confusion 



i 



BATTLE OF KNOCKTOW. I43 

prevailing on the subject. The whole story indeed 
is so excellent, and is told by the narrator with so 
much spirit, that it were pity to curtail it, and as it 
stands it would be too long for these pages. The 
result was that Clanricarde and his Irish allies were 
defeated with frightful slaughter, between seven and 
eight thousand men, according to the victors, having 
been left dead upon the field ! Galway, previously 
held by Clanricarde, was re-occupied, and the deputy 
and his allies returned in triumph to Dublin, whence 
the archbishop was despatched in hot haste to explain 
matters to the king. 

A slight incident which took place at the end of 
this battle is too characteristic to omit. " We have 
done one good work," observed Lord Gorman- 
ston, one of the Lords of the Pale, confidentially to 
the Lord-deputy. " And if we now do the other we 
shall do well." Asked by the latter what he meant, 
he replied, "We have for the most part killed our 
enemies, if we do the like with all the Irishmen that 
we have with us it were a good deed." ^ Happily for 
his good fame Kildare seems to have been able to 
resist the tempting suggestion, and the allies parted 
on this occasion to all appearances on friendly terms. 

^ Book of Howth. 




XX. 

FALL OF THE PIOUSE OF KILDARE. 

The battle of Knocktow was fought five years 
before the death of Henry VII. Of those five years 
and of the earlier ones of the new reign little 
of any vital importance remains to be recorded 
in Ireland. With the rise of Wolsey to power how- 
ever a new era set in. The great cardinal was the 
sworn enemy of the Geraldines. He saw in them 
the most formidable obstacle to the royal power in 
that country. The theory that the Kildares were 
the only people who could carry on the government 
had by this time become firmly established. No 
one in Ireland could stand against the earl, and when 
the earl was out of Ireland the whole island was in an 
uproar. The confusion too between Kildare in his 
proper person, and Kildare as the king's Viceroy was, 
it must be owned, a perennial one, and upon more 
than one occasion had all but brought the govern- 
ment to an absolute standstill. 

Geroit Mor had died in 15 13 of a wound received 
in a campaign with the O'Carrolls close to his own 
castle of Kilkea, but almost as a matter of course his son 
Gerald had succeeded him as Viceroy and carried on 



J 



PLAN OF THE EARL OF SURREY. I45 

the government in much the same fashion ; had made 
raids on the O'Moores and O'Reillys and others of the 
" king's Irish enemies," and been rewarded with grants 
upon the lands which he had captured from the rebels.' 
The state of the Pale was terrible. " Coyne and 
livery," it was declared, had eaten up the people. 
The sea, too, swarmed with pirates, who descended 
all but unchecked upon the coast and carried off men 
and women to slavery. Many complaints were made 
of the deputy, and by 1520 these had grown so 
loud and long that Henry resolved upon a change, 
and like his predecessor determined to send an 
English governor, one upon whom he could himself 
rely. 

The choice fell upon the Earl of Surrey, son of the 
conqueror of Flodden. Surrey's survey of the field 
soon convinced him to his own satisfaction that no 
half measures was likely to be of any avail. The 
plan proposed by him had certainly the merit of 
being sufficiently sweeping. Ireland was to be entirely 
reconquered. District was to be taken after district, 
and fortresses to be built to hold them according as 
they were conquered. The occupation was thus to 
be pushed steadily on until the whole country sub- 
mitted, after which it was to be largely repopulated 
by English colonists. The idea was a large one, and 
would have taken a large permanent army to carry 
out. The loss too of life would have been appalling, 
though not, it was represented to the king, greater than 
was annually squandered in an interminable succession 
of petty wars. Probably the expense was the real hin- 
drance. At any rate Surrey's plan was put aside for 



146 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF KILDARE. 

the time being, and not long afterwards at his own 
urgent prayer he was allowed to lay down his uneasy 
honours and return to England. 

Meanwhile Earl Gerald the younger had been 
rapidly gaining favour at Court, had accompanied 
Henry to France, and like his father before him, had 
wooed and won an English bride. Like his father, 
too, he possessed that winning charm which had 
for generations characterized his house. Quick- 
witted and genial, with the bright manner and cour- 
teous ease of high-bred gentlemen, such — even on 
the showing of those who had no love for them — was 
the habitual bearing of these Leinster Geraldines. 
The end was that Kildare after a while was allowed 
to return to Ireland, and upon Surrey's departure, 
and after a brief and very unsuccessful tenure of 
office by Sir Pierce Butler, the deputyship was re- 
stored to him. 

Three years later he was again summoned, and this 
time, on Wolsey's urgent advice, thrown into the 
Tower. Heavy accusations had been made against 
him, the most formidable of which was that he had 
used the king's ordnance to strengthen his own castle 
of Maynooth. The Ormonds and the cardinal 
were bent upon his ruin. The earl, however, faced his 
accusers boldly ; met even the great cardinal himself 
in a war of words, and proved to be more than his 
equal. Once again he was acquitted and restored to 
Ireland, and after a while the deputyship was 
restored to him, John Allen, a former chaplain of 
Wolsey's, being however appointed Archbishop of 
Dublin, and Chancellor, with private orders to keep a 



DEATH OF KILDARE. I47 

.watch upon Kildare, and to report his proceedings to 
the EngHsh Council, 

Yet a third time in 1534 he was summoned, and 
now the case was more serious. The whole situa- 
tion had in fact in the meanwhile utterly changed, 
Henry was now in the thick of his great struggle 
with Rome. With excommunication hanging over 
his head, Ireland had suddenly become a formid- 
able peril. Fears were entertained of a Spanish 
descent upon its coast. One of the emperor's 
chaplains was known to be intriguing with the Earl 
of Desmond. Cromwell's iron hand too was over 
the realm and speedily made itself felt in Ireland. 
Kildare was once more thrown into the Tower, from 
which this time he was never destined to emerge. He 
was ill already of a wound received the previous year, 
and the confinement and trouble of mind — which 
before long became acute — brought his life to a close. 

His son Thoma* — generally known as Silken 
Thomas from the splendour of his clothes — had been 
rashly appointed vice-deputy by his father before his 
departure. In the month of August, a report reached 
Ireland that the earl had been executed, and* the 
whole house of Geraldine was forthwith thrown into 
the wildest convulsions of fury at the intelligence. 
Young Lord Thomas — he was only at the time 
twenty-one — hot-tempered, undisciplined, and brimful 
of the pride of his race — at once flew to arms. His 
first act was to renounce his allegiance to England. 
Galloping up to the Council with a hundred and 
fifty Geraldines at his heels, he seized the Sword of 
State, marched into the council-room, and addressing 



148 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF KILDARE. 

the Council in his capacity of Vice-deputy, poured 
forth a speech full of boyish fanfaronade and bravado. 
" Henceforth," said he, "I am none of Henry's deputy! 
I am his foe! I have more mind to meet him in 
the field, than to serve him in office." With other 
, words to the like effect he rendered up the Sword, and 
once more springing upon his horse, galloped out of 
Dublin. 

He was back again before long, this time with 
intent to seize the town. There was little or no 
defence. Ormond was away; the walls were decayed; 
ordnance was short — a good deal of it, the Geraldine 
enemies said, had been already removed to May- 
nooth. White, the commander, threw himself into 
the castle ; the gates were opened ; Lord Thomas 
cantered in and took possession of the town, the 
garrison remaining placidly looking on. 

Worse' was to come. Allen, the archbishop, and 
the great enemy of the Fitzgeralds made an attempt 
to escape to England, but was caught and savagely 
murdered by some of the Geraldine adherents upon 
the sea coast near Clontarf When the news of 
these proceedings — especially of the last named — 
reached England, the sensation naturally was immense. 
Henry hastily despatched Sir William Skeffington with 
a considerable force to restore order, but his coming 
was long delayed, and when he did arrive his opera- 
tions were feeble in the extreme. Ormond had 
marched rapidly up from the south, and almost 
singlehanded defended the interests of government. 
Even after his arrival Skeffington, who was old, 
cautious, and enfeebled by bad health, remained for 



CAPTURE OF MAYNOOTH BY THE ENGLISH. 149 

months shut up in Dublin doing nothing, the followers 
of Lord Thomas wasting the country at pleasure, and 
burning the towns of Trim and Dunboyne, not many 
miles from its walls. 

The Earl of Kildare had meanwhile died in prison, 
broken-hearted at the news of this ill-starred rising, in 
which he doubtless foresaw the ruin of his house. It 
was not until the month of March, eight months after 
his arrival in Ireland, that Sir William ventured to 
leave Dublin, and advance to the attack of Maynooth 
Castle, the great Leinster stronghold and Paladium of 
the Geraldines. Young Kildare, as he now was, was 
away in the south, but managed to throw some 
additional men into the castle, which was already 
strongly fortified, and believed in Ireland to be 
impregnable. The siege train imported by the 
deputy shortly dispelled that illusion. Whether, as 
is asserted, treachery from within aided the result or 
not, the end was not long delayed. After a few 
days Skeffington's cannons made a formidable breach 
in the walls. The English soldiery rushed in. The 
defenders threw down their arms and begged mercy, 
and a long row of them, including the Dean of 
Kildare and another priest who happened to be in 
the castle at the time were speedily hanging in front 
of its walls. " The Pardon of Maynooth " was from 
that day forth a well-known Irish equivalent for the 
gallows ! 

This was the end of the rebellion. The destruction 
of Maynooth Castle seems to have struck a cold chill 
to the very hearts of the Geraldines. For a while, 
Earl Thomas and his brother-in-law, the chief of the 



150 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF KILDARE. 

O'Connors, tried vainly to sustain the spirits of their 
followers. The rising seems to have melted away 
almost of its own accord, and within a few months 
the young leader himself surrendered to Lord Leonard 
Grey, the English commander, upon the understand- 
ing that his life was to be spared. Lord Leonard was 
his near relative, and therefore no doubt willing, as 
far as was compatible with safety to himself, to do the 
best he could for his kinsman. Whether a promise was 
formally given, or whether as was afterwards asserted 
"comfortable words were spoken to Thomas to allure 
him to yield " the situation was considered too grave 
for any mere fanciful consideration of honour to stand 
in the way. Lord Thomas was not executed upon 
the spot, but he was thrown into prison, and a year 
later with iive of his uncles, two of whom at least had 
had no share whatever in the raising, he was hanged 
at Tyburn. Of all the great house of the Leinster 
Geraldines only a boy of twelve years old survived 
this hecatomb. 




FIGURES ON KILCARN FONT, MEATH. 




XXI. 

THE ACT OF SUPREMACY. 

In spite of his feeble health and feebler energies, 
Sir William Skefifington was continued Lord-deputy 
until his death, which took place not many months after 
the fall of Maynooth — " A good man of war, but not 
quick enough for Ireland " — seems to have been the 
verdict of his contemporaries upon him. He was 
succeeded by Lord Leonard Grey, against whom 
no such charge could be made. His energy seems to 
have been immense. He loved, we are told, to be 
" ever in the saddle." Such was the rapidity of his 
movements, and such the terror they inspired that for 
a while a sort of awe-struck tranquillity prevailed. He 
overran Cork ; broke down the castles of the Barrys 
and Munster Geraldines ; destroyed the famous bridge 
over the Shannon across which the O'Briens of Clare 
had been in the habit of descending from time imme- 
morial upon the Pale, and after these various achieve- 
ments returned triumphantly to Dublin. 

His Geraldine connection proved however his ruin. 
He was accused of favouring the adherents of their 
fallen house, and even of conniving at the escape of 
its last legitimate heir ; of playing " Bo Peep " with 



152 THE ACT OF SUPREMACY. 

him, as Stanihurst, the historian puts it. Ormond 
and the deputy were never friends, and Ormond had 
won — not undeservedly — great weight in the councils 
of Henry. " My Lord-deputy," Lord Butler, Or- 
mond's son had declared, " is the Earl of Kildare 
-born over again." Luttrell, on the other hand, de- 
clared that " Ormond hated Grey worse than he had 
hated Kildare." All agreed that Lord Leonard was 
difficult to work with. He seems to have been a well- 
intentioned man, a hard worker, and a keen soldier, 
but neither subtle enough nor conciliatory enough 
for his place. He was accused of treasonable 
practices, and a list of formidable charges made 
against him. At his own request he was summoned 
to court to answer these. To a good many he 
pleaded guilty — half in contempt as it would seem — 
and threw himself upon the mercy of the king. No 
mercy however followed. Like many another " well- 
meaning English official" of the period, his life ended 
upon the scaffold. 

A more astute and cautious man. Sir Anthony St 
Leger, next took the helm in Ireland. His task was 
chiefly one of diplomacy, and he carried it out with 
much address. In 1537 a parliament had been sum- 
moned in Dublin for the purpose of carrying out the 
Act of Supremacy. To this proposal the lay members 
seem to have been perfectly indifferent, but, as was to 
be expected, the clergy stood firmer. So resolute 
were they in their opposition that the parliament had 
to be prorogued, and upon its re-assembling, a Bill was 
hastily forced through by the Privy Council, declaring 
that the proctors, who had long represented the clergy 



CONFISCATION OF THE MONASTERIES. I53 

in the Lower House, had henceforward no place in 
the Legislature. The Act of Supremacy was then 
passed : thirteen abbeys were immediately suppressed, 
and the firstfruits made over to the king in place 
of the Pope. . The foundation of the new edifice was 
felt to have been securely laid. 

This was followed five years later by another Act, by 
which the property of over four hundred religious 
houses was confiscated. That the arguments which 
applied forcibly enough in many cases for the con- 
fiscations of religious houses in England had no 
application in Ireland, was a circumstance which was 
not allowed to count. In England, the monasteries 
were rich ; in Ireland, they were, for the most part, 
very poor : in England, they absorbed the revenues of 
the parishes ; in Ireland, the monks as a rule served 
the parishes themselves : in England, popular condem- 
nation had to a great degree already forestalled the 
legal enactment ; in Ireland, nothing of the sort had 
ever been thought of: in England, the monks were 
as a rule distinctly behind the higher orders of laity 
in education ; in Ireland, they were practically the 
only educators. These however were details. Uni- 
formity was desirable. The monasteries were doomed, 
and before long means were found to enlist most of 
the Irish landowners, Celts no less than Normans, in 
favour of the despoliation. 

At a great parliament summoned in Dublin in 
1540, all the Irish lords of English descent, and 
a large muster of native chieftains were for the 
first time in history assembled together under one 
roof. O'Tooles and O'Byrnes from their wild Wick- 



1:54 ^^^ ^CT OF SUPREMACY. 

low mountains ; the McMurroughs from Carlow, the 
O'Connor, the O'Dunn, the O'Moore ; the terrible 
McGillapatrick from his forests of Upper Ossory — 
all the great O's and Macs in fact of Ireland were 
called together to meet the Butlers, the Desmonds, 
■the Barrys, the Fitzmaurices — their hereditary enemies 
now for four long centuries. One house alone was not 
represented, and that the greatest of them all. The 
sun of the Kildares had set for a while, and the only 
surviving member of it was a boy, hiding in holes 
and corners, and trusting for the bare life to the fealty 
of his clansmen. 

Nothing that could reconcile the chiefs to the new- 
religious departure was omitted upon this occasion. 
Their new-found loyalty was to be handsomely re- 
warded with a share of the Church spoil. Nor did 
they show the smallest reluctance, it must be said, to 
meet the king's good dispositions half way. The 
principal Church lands in Galway were made over 
to McWilliam, the head of the Burkes ; O'Brien 
received the abbey lands in Thomond ; other chiefs 
received similar benefices according to their degree, 
while a plentiful shower of less substantial, but still 
appreciated favours followed. The turbulent Mc- 
Gillapatrick of Ossory was to be converted into the 
decorous-sounding Lord Upper Ossory. For Con 
O'Neill as soon as he chose to come in, the Earldom 
of Tyrone was waiting. McWilliam Burke of Galway 
was to become Earl of Clanricarde ; O'Brien of Clare, 
Earl of Thomond and Baron of Inchiquin. Parlia- 
mentary robes, and golden chains ; a house in Dublin 
for each chief during the sitting of Parliament — these 



DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH LANDS. 



155 



were only a portion of the good things offered by the 
deputy on the part of his master. Could man or 
monarch do more ? In a general interchange of 
civilities the " King's Irish enemies " combined with 
their hereditary foes to proclaim him no longer Lord, 
but King of Ireland — " Defender of the Faith, and of 
the Church of England and Ireland on earth the 
Supreme Head." 




FONT IN KILCARN CHURCH, CO. MEATH. 



XXII. 

THE NEW DEPARTURE. 

So far so good. Despite a few trifling clouds which 
overhung the horizon, the latter years of Henry VIII.'s 
life and the short reign of his successor may claim 
to count among the comparatively halcyon periods of 
Irish history. The agreement with the landowners 
worked well, and no serious fears of any purpose to 
expel them from their lands had as yet been awakened. 
Henry's policy was upon the whole steadily concilia- 
tory. Tyrant as he was, he could be just when his 
temper was not roused, and he kept his word loyally 
in this case. To be just and firm, and to give time 
for those hitherto untried varieties of government to 
work, was at once the most merciful and most politic 
course that could be pursued. Unfortunately for the 
destinies of Ireland, unfortunately for the future com- 
fort of her rulers, there was too little patience to 
persevere in that direction. The Government desired 
to eat their loaf before there was fairly time for the 
corn to sprout The seed of conciliation had hardly 
begun to grow before it was plucked hastily up by the 
roots again. The plantations of Mary's reign, and 
the still larger operations carried on in that of her 



NEW IRISH PEERS. 157 

sister, awakened a deep-seated feeling of distrust, a 
rooted belief in the law as a mysterious and incom- 
prehensible instrument invented solely for the per- 
petration of injustice, a belief which is certainly not 
wholly extinguished even in our own day. 

For the present, however, " sober ways, politic 
shifts, and amicable persuasions " were the rule. 
Chief after chief accepted the indenture which made 
him owner in fee simple under the king of his tribal 
lands. These indentures, it is true, were in themselves 
unjust, but then it was not as it happened a form of 
injustice that affected them unpleasantly. Con O'Neill, 
Murrough O'Brien, McWilliam of Clanricarde, all 
visited Greenwich in the summer of 1543, and all 
received their peerages direct from the king's own 
hands. The first named, as became his importance, 
was received with special honour, and received the title 
of Earl of Tyrone, with the second title of Baron of 
Dungannon for any son whom he liked to name. The 
son whom he did name — apparently in a fit of inadvert- 
ence — was one Matthew, who is confidently asserted to 
have not been his son at all, but the son of a black- 
smith, and who in any case was not legitimate. An 
odd choice, destined, as will be seen, to lead to a 
good deal of bloodshed later on. 

One or two of the new peers were even per- 
suaded to send over their heirs to be brought up 
at the English Court, according to a gracious hint 
from the king. Young Barnabie FitzPatrick, heir to 
the new barony of Upper Ossory, was one of these, 
and the descendent of a long line of turbulent Mc 
Gillapatricks, grew up there into a douce-mannered 



158 THE NEW DEPARTURE. 

English-seeming youth, the especial friend and chosen 
companion of the mild young prince. 

While civil strife was thus settling down, religious 
strife unfortunately was only beginning to awaken. 
The question of supremacy had passed over as we 
. have seen in perfect tranquillity ; it was a very dif- 
ferent matter when it came to a question of doctrine. 
Unlike England, Ireland had never been touched by 
religious controversy. The native Church and the 
Church of the Pale were sharply separated from one 
another it is true, but it was by blood, language, and 
mutual jealousies, not by creed, doctrine, or discipline. 
As regards these points they were all but absolutely 
identical. The attempt to change their common faith 
was instantly and vehemently resisted by both alike. 
Could a Luther or a John Knox have arrived, with all 
the fervour of their popular eloquence, the case might 
possibly have been different. No Knox or Luther 
however, showed the slightest symptom of appearing, 
indeed hardly an attempt was made to supply doctrines 
to the new converts. The few English divines that 
did come knew no Irish, those who listened to them 
knew no English. The native priests were silent and. 
auspicious. A general pause of astonishment and 
consternation prevailed. 

The order for the destruction of relics broke this 
silence, and sent a passionate thrill of opposition 
through all breasts, lay as well as clerical. When 
the venerated remains of the golden days of the 
Irish Church were collected together and publicly 
destroyed, especially when the staff of St. Patrick, 
the famous Baculum Cristatum, part of which was 



OUTBREAK OF RELIGIOUS STRIFE. 159 

believed to have actually touched the hands of the 
Saviour, was burnt in Dublin in the market-place, 
a spasm • of shocked dismay ran through the whole 
island. Men who would have been scandalized 
by no other form of violence were horror-stricken 
at this. Differences of creed were so little under- 
stood that a widespread belief that a new era of 
paganism was about to be inaugurated sprang up all 
over Ireland. To this belief the friars, who, though 
driven from their cloisters, were still numerous, lent 
their support, as did the Jesuits, who now for the 
first time began to arrive in some numbers. Even 
the acceptance of the supremacy began to be rebelled 
against now that it was clearly seen what it was lead- 
ing to. An order to read the new English liturgy 
was met with sullen resistance — " Now shall every 
illiterate fellow read mass ! " cried Archbishop Dowdal 
of Armagh, in hot wrath and indignation. Brown, the 
Archbishop of Dublin, was an ardent reformer, so 
also was the Bishop of Meath, but to the mass of their 
brethren they simply appeared to be heretics. A 
proposal was made to translate the Prayer-book into 
Irish, but it was never carried into effect, indeed, 
even in the next century when Bishop Bedell pro- 
posed to undertake the task he received little en- 
couragement. 

The attempt to force Protestantism upon the 
country produced one, and only one, important result. 
It broke down those long-standing barriers which had 
hitherto separated Irishmen of different blood and 
lineage, and united them like one man against the 
Crown. When the common faith was touched the 



l6o THE NEW DEPARTURE. 

common sense of brotherhood was kindled. " The 
English and Irish," Archbishop Brown wrote in despair 
to Cromwell, "both oppose your lordship's orders, and 
begin to lay aside their own quarrels." Such a result 
might be desirable in itself, but it certainly came in the 
-form least likely to prove propitious for the futuos 
tranquillity of the country. Even those towns where 
loyalty had hitherto stood above suspicion received 
the order to dismantle their churches and destroy 
all "pictures and Popish fancies" with sullen 
dislike and hostility. Galway, Kilkenny, Waterford, 
each and all protested openly. The Irish problem — 
not so very easy of solution before — had suddenly 
received a new element of confusion. One that was 
destined to prove a greater difficulty than all the rest 
put together. 




INITIAL LETTER FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS. 



XXIII. 



THE FIRST PLANTATIONS. 



With Mary's accession the religious struggle was 
for a while postponed. Some feeble attempts were 
even made to recover the Church property, but too 
many people's interests were concerned for much to 
be done in that direction. Dowdal, Archbishop of 
Armagh, who had been deprived, was restored to his 
primacy. Archbishop Brown and the other confor- 
ming bishops were deprived. So also were all married 
clergy, of whom there seem to have been but few ; 
otherwise there was no great difference. As far as 
the right of exercising her supremacy was concerned, 
Mary relished Papal interference nearly as little as 
did her father. 

Although the religious struggle was thus for a time 
postponed, the other vital Irish point — the possession 
of the land — now began to be pressed with new 
vigour. Fercal, Leix, and Offaly, belonging to the 
fierce tribes of the O'Moores, O'Dempseys, O'Connors, 
and O'Carrols, lay upon the Kildare frontier of the 
Pale, and had long been a standing menace to their 
more peaceful neighbours. It was now determined 
that this tract should be added to the still limited 



idz THE FIRST PLANTATIONS. 

area of shire land. The chiefs, it is true, had been 
indentured by Henry, but since then there had been 
outbreaks of the usual sort, and it was considered 
by the Government that nowhere could the longed-for 
experiment of a plantation be tried with greater 
advantage. 

There was little or no resistance. The chiefs, taken 
by surprise, submitted. The English force sent 
against them, under the command of Sir Edward 
Bellingham, was irresistible. O'Moore and O'Connor 
were seized and sent prisoners to England. Dangen, 
which had so often resisted the soldiers of the Pale 
was taken. The tribesmen whose fathers had fed 
their cattle from time immemorial upon the un- 
fenced pastures . of the plains were driven off, and 
took refuge in the forests, which still covered most 
of the centre of Ireland. The more profitable land 
was then leased by the Crown to English colonists 
— Cosbies, Barringtons, Pigotts, Bowens, and others. 
Leix and a portion of Offaly were called Queen's 
County, in compliment to the queen, the remainder 
King's County, in compliment to Philip. Dangen at 
the same time becoming Phillipstown, and Campa 
Maryborough. The experiment was regarded as 
eminently successful, and congratulations passed be- 
tween the deputy and the English Council, but 
it awakened a deep-seated sense of insecurity and 
ill-usage, which argued poorly for the tranquillity of 
the future. 

Of the rest of Mary's reign little needs to be here 
recorded. That indelible brand of blood which it has 
left on English history was all but unfelt in Ireland. 



DEATH OF MARY, 163 

. There had been few Protestant converts, and those 
few were not apparently emulous of martyrdom. 
No Smithfield fires were lighted in Dublin, indeed 
it is a curious fact that in the whole course of Irish 
history — so prodigal of other horrors — no single exe- 
cution for heresy is, it is said, recorded. A story is 
found in the Ware Papers, and supported by the 
authority of Archbishop Ussher, which, if true, shows 
that this reproach to Irish Protestantism — if indeed it 
is a reproach — was once nearly avoided. The story 
runs that one Cole, Dean of St. Paul's,- was despatched 
by Mary with a special commission to " lash the 
heretics of Ireland." That Cole slept on his way 
at an inn in Chester, the landlady of which happened 
to have a brother, a Protestant then living in Dublin. 
This woman, hearing him boast of his commission, 
watched her opportunity, and stole the commission 
out of his cloak-bag, substituting for it a pack of 
cards. Cole unsuspiciously pursued his way, and 
presenting himself authoritatively before the deputy, 
declared his business and opened his bag. There, in 
place of the commission against the heretics, lay the 
pack of cards with the knave of clubs uppermost ! 

The story goes on to say that the dean raged in 
discomfited fury, but that the deputy, though himself 
a Roman Catholic, took the matter easily. " Let us 
have another commission," he said, " and meanwhile 
we will shuffle the cards." The cards were effectually 
shuffled, for before any further steps could be taken 
Mary had died. 




XXIV. 

WARS AGAINST SHANE O'NEILL. 

Upon the 17th of November, 1558, Mary died, and 
upon the afternoon of the same day Elizabeth was 
proclaimed queen. A new reign is always accounted 
a new starting-point, and in this case the traditional 
method of dividing history is certainly no misleader. 
The old queen had been narrow, dull-witted, bigoted ; 
an unhappy woman, a miserable wife, plagued with 
sickness, plagued, above all, with a conscience whose 
mission seems to have been to distort everything 
that came under its cognizance. A woman even 
whose good qualities — and she had several — only 
seemed to push her further and further down the 
path of disaster. 

The new queen was twenty-six years old. Old 
enough, therefore, to have realized what life meant, 
young enough to have almost illimitable possibilities 
still unrevealed to her. No pampered royal heiress, 
either, for whom the world of hard facts had no 
reality, and the silken shams of a Court constituted 
the only standpoint, but one who had already with 
steady eyes looked danger and disaster in the face 
and knew them for what they were. • With a realm 



TROUBLES IN THE NORTH. 165 

under her hand strong already, and destined before 
her death to grow stronger still ; with a spirit too, 
strong enough and large enough for her realm ; 
stronger perhaps in spite of her many littlenesses 
than that of any of the men she ruled over. 

And Ireland ? How was it affected by this change 
of rulers ? At first fairly well. The early months of 
the new reign were marked by a policy of conciliation. 
Protestantism was of course, re-established, but there 
was no eagerness to press the Act of Conformity with 
any severity, and Mass was still said nearly every- 
where except in the Pale. 

As usual, troubles began in the North. Henry VHL, 
it will be remembered, had granted the hereditary 
lands of Tyrone to Con O'Neill, with remainder to 
Matthew, the new Baron of Dungannon, whereas 
lands in Ulster, as elsewhere in Ireland, had always 
hitherto, by the law of Tanistry, been vested in the 
tribe, who claimed the right to select whichever of 
their late chiefs' sons they themselves thought fit. 
This right they now proceeded to exercise. Matthew, 
if he was Con's son at all, which was doubtful, 
was unquestionably illegitimate, and, therefore, by 
English as well as Irish law, wrongfully put in the 
place. On the other hand, a younger son Shane — 
called affectionately " Shane the Proud " by his clans- 
men — was unquestionably legitimate, and what was 
of much more importance, was already the idol of 
every fighting O'Neill from Lough Foyle to the 
banks of the Blackwater, 

Shane is one of those Irish heroes — rather perhaps 
Ulster heroes, for his aspirations were hardly national 



l66 WARS AGAINST SHANE O'NEILL. 

— whom it is extremely difficult to mete out justice to 
with a perfectly even hand. He was unquestionably 
three-fourths of a savage — that fact we must begin 
in honesty by admitting — at the same time, he was a 
very brilliant, and, even in many respects attractive, 
savage. His letters, though suffering like those of 
some other distinguished authors from being trans- 
lated, are full of touches of fiery eloquence, mixed 
with bombast and the wildest and most monstrously 
inflated self-pretension. His habits certainly were not 
commendable. He habitually drank, and it is also 
said ate a great deal more than was good for him. 
He ill-used his unlucky prisoners. He divorced one 
wife to marry another, and was eager to have a third 
in the lifetime of the second, making proposals at the 
same time to the deputy for the hand of his sister, and 
again and again petitioning the queen to provide him 
with some " English gentlewoman of noble blood, meet 
for my vocation, so that by her good civility arid bring- 
ing up the country would become civil." In spite 
however of these and a few other lapses from the 
received modern code of morals and decorum, Shane 
the Proud is an attractive figure in his way, and we 
follow his fortunes with an interest which more 
estimable heroes fail sometimes to awaken. 

The Baron of Dungannon was in the meantime 
dead, having been slain in a scuffle with his half- 
brother's followers — some said by his half-brother's 
own hand — previous to his father's death. His son, 
however, who was still a boy, was safe in England, 
and now appealed through his relations to the 
Government, and Sir Henry Sidney, who in Lord 



DEFEAT OF SUSSEX BY SHANE. 167 

Sussex's absence was in command, marched from 
Dublin to support the English candidate. At a 
meeting which took place at Dundalk Shane seems 
however to have convinced Sidney to some degree 
of the justice of his claim, and hostilities were delayed 
until the matter could be reported to the queen. 

Upon Sussex's return from England they broke 
out again. Shane, however, had by this time con- 
siderably strengthened his position. Not only had he 
firmly established himself in the allegiance of his own 
tribe, but had found allies and assistants outside it. 
There had of late been a steady migration of Scotch 
islanders into the North of Ireland, " Redshanks " as 
they were familarly called, and a body of these, got 
together by Shane and kept as a body-guard, enabled 
him to act with unusual rapidity and decision. Upon 
Sussex attempting to detach two chieftains, O'Reilly 
of Brefny and O'Donnell of Tyrconnel, who owed 
him allegiance, Shane flew into Brefny and Tyr- 
connel, completely overawed the two waverers, and 
carried off Calvagh O'Donnell with his wife, who 
was a sister-in-law of the Earl of Argyle. The 
following summer he encountered Sussex himself and 
defeated him, sending his army flying terror-stricken 
back upon Armagh. This feat established him as 
the hero of the North. No army which Sussex could 
again gather together could be induced to risk the 
fate of its predecessor. The deputy was a poor 
soldier, feeble and vacillating in the field. He 
was no match for his fiery assailant ; and after an 
attempt to get over the difficulty by suborning one 
Neil Grey to make away with the too successful 



l6$ WARS AGAINST SHANE o'NEILL. 

Shane, he was reduced to the necessity of coming to 
terms. An agreement was entered into with the 
assistance of the Earl of Kildare, by which Shane 
agreed to present himself at the English Court, and 
there, if he could, to make good his claims in person 
before the queen. 

Few scenes are more picturesque, or stand out more 
vividly before our imagination than this visit of the 
turbulent Ulster chieftain to the capital of his un- 
known sovereign. As he came striding down the 
London streets on his way to the Palace, the citizens 
ran to their doors to stare at the redoubtable Irish 
rebel with his train of galloglasses at his heels — huge 
bareheaded fellows clad in saffron shirts, their huge 
naked axes swung over their shoulders, their long hair 
streaming behind them, their great hairy mantles 
dangling nearly to their heels. So attended, and 
in such order, Shane presented himself before the 
queen, amid a buzz, as may be imagined, of courtly 
astonishment. Elizabeth seems to have been equal 
to the situation. She motioned Shane, who had 
prostrated himself, clansman fashion upon the floor, 
to rise, "check'd with a glance the circle's smile," 
eyeing as she did so, not without characteristic 
appreciation, the redoubtable thews and sinews of 
this the most formidable of her vassals. 

Her appreciation, equally characteristically, did not 
hinder her from taking advantage of a flaw in his 
safe-conduct to keep Shane fuming at her Court until 
he had agreed to her own terms. When at last he 
was allowed to return home it was with a sort of 
compromise of his claim. He was not to call himself 



THE RULE OF SHANE. l6g 

. Earl of Tyrone — a distinction to which, in truth, he 
seems to have attached little importance — but he 
was allowed to be still the O'Neill, with the addi- 
tional title of " Captain of Tyrone." To which the 
wits of the Court added — 

"Shane O'Neill, Lord of the North of Ireland ; 

Cousin of St. Patrick. Friend of the Queen of England ; 
Enemy of all the world besides. " 

Shane and his galloglasses went home, and for 
some two years he and the Irish Government left one 
another comparatively alone. He was supreme now 
in the North, and ruled his own subjects at his own 
pleasure and according to his own rude fashion. 
Sussex made another attempt not long after to poison 
him in a gift of wine, which all but killed him and his 
entire household, which still included the unhappy 
" Countess " and her yet more unhappy husband 
Calvagh O'Donnell, whom Shane kept securely ironed 
in a cell at the bottom of his castle. The incident 
did not add to his confidence in the Queen's Govern- 
ment, or incline him to trust himself again in their 
hands, which, all things considered, was hardly sur- 
prising. 

That in his own wild way Shane kept the North in 
order even his enemies admitted. While the East 
and West of Ireland were distracted with feuds, and 
in the South Ormond and Desmond were wasting 
one another's country with unprecedented ferocity. 
Ulster was comparatively peaceable and prosperous. 
Chiefs who made themselves objectionable to Shane 
felt the weight of his arm, but that perhaps had not a 



ryo WARS AGAINST SHANE O'NEILL. 

little to say to this tranquillity. Mr. Froude — no ex- 
aggerated admirer of Irish heroes— tells us apropos of 
this time, " In O'Neill's county alone in Ireland were 
peasants prosperous, or life and property safe," though 
he certainly adds that their prosperity flourished 
. largely upon the spoils collected by them from the 
rest of the country. 

That Shane himself believed that he had so far kept 
his word with Elizabeth is pretty evident, for in a 
letter to her written in his usual inflated style about 
the notorious Sir Thomas Stukeley, he entreats that 
she will pardon the latter " for his sake and in the 
name of the services which he had himself rendered to 
England." Whether Elizabeth, or still more Sidney, 
were equally convinced of those services is an open 
question. 

Shane's career however was rapidly running to a 
close. In 1565 he made a sudden and unexpected 
descent upon the Scots in Antrim, where, after a fierce 
combat, an immense number of the latter were 
slaughtered, a feat for which he again had the audacity 
to write to Elizabeth and assure her that it was all 
done in her service. Afterwards he made a descent 
on Connaught, driving back with him into his own 
country over 4000 head of cattle which he had 
captured. His game, however, was nearly at an 
end. Sir Henry Sidney was now back to Ireland, 
this time with the express purpose of crushing the 
rebel, and had marched into Ulster with a con- 
siderable force for that purpose. Shane, nevertheless, 
still showed a determined front. Struck up an 
alliance with Argyle, and wrote to France for 



ENERGY OF SIDNEY. I71 

instant aid to hold Ulster against Elizabeth, nay, in 
spite of his recent achievement, he seems to have even 
hoped to win the Scotch settlers over to his side. 
Sidney however was this time in earnest, and was 
a man of very different calibre from Sussex, in whom 
Shane had previously found so easy an antagonist- 
He marched right across Ulster, and entered Tyrcon- 
nel ; reinstated the O'Donnells who had been 
driven thence by Shane ; continued his march to 
Sligo, and from there to Connaught, leaving Colonel 
Randolph and the O'Donnells to hold the North and 
finish the work which he had begun. 

Randolph's camp was pitched at Dorry — not then 
the protegee of London, nor yet famed in story, but a 
mere insignificant hamlet, consisting of an old castle 
and a disused graveyard. It was this latter site that 
the unlucky English commander selected for his 
camp, with, as might be expected, the most disas- 
trous results. Fever broke out, the water proved to 
be poisonous, and in a short time half the force were 
dead or dying, Randolph himself being amongst 
the former. An explosion which occurred in a 
magazine finished the disaster, and the scared sur- 
vivors escaped in dismay to Carrickfergus. Local 
superstition long told tales of the fiery portents and 
miracles by which the heretic soldiery were driven 
from the sacred precincts which their presence had 
pointed. 

With that odd strain of greatness which ran through 
her, Elizabeth seems to have accepted this disaster 
well, and wrote " comfortable words " to Sidney upon 
the subject For the time being, however, the attack 



3:72 WARS AGAINST SHANE O^NEILL. 

upon Shane devolved of necessity wholly upon his 
native foes. 

Aided by good fortune they proved for once 
more than a match for him. Encouraged by the 
disaster of the Derry garrison, Shane made a hasty 
advance into Tyrconnel, and crossed with a consider- 
able force over the ford of Lough Swilly, near Letter- 
kenny. He found the O'Donnells, though fewer in 
number than his own forces, established in a strong 
position upon the other side. From this position he 
tried to drive them by force, but the O'Donnells were 
prepared, and Shane's troops coming on in disorder 
were beaten back upon the river. The tide had in 
the meantime risen, and there was therefore no escape. 
Penned between the flood and the O'Donnells, over 
3000 of his men perished, many by drowning, but 
the greater number being hacked to death upon the 
strand. Shane himself narrowly escaped with his 
life by another ford. 

The Hero of the North was now a broken man. 
Such a disaster was not to be retrieved. The English 
troops were again coming rapidly up. The victorious 
O'Donnells held all the country behind him. A 
French descent, even if it had come, would hardly 
have saved him now. In this extremity a desperate 
plan occurred to him. Followed by a few horsemen, 
and accompanied by the unhappy "Countess" who had 
so long shared his curious fortunes, he rode off to the 
camp of the Scotch settlers in Antrim, there to throw 
himself on their mercy and implore their support. 
It was an insane move. He was received with 
seeming courtesy, and a banquet spread in his 



MURDER OF SHANE. 



173 



honour. Lowering looks however were bent upon him 
from every side of the table. Captain Pierce, an 
English officer, had been busy the day before stirring 
up the smouldering embers of anger. Suddenly a 
taunt was flung out by one of the guests at the 
discomfited hero, Shane— forgetting perhaps where 
he was — sprang up to revenge it. A dozen swords 
and skeans blazed out upon him, and he fell, 
pierced by three or four of his entertainers at 
once. His body was then tossed into an old 
ruined chapel hard by, where the next day his head 
was hacked off by Captain Pierce, and carried to 
Sidney, who sent it to be spiked upon Dublin Castle. 
It was but too characteristic an end of an eminently 
characteristic career. 




PATRICKS BELL. 




XXV. 

BETWEEN TWO STORMS. 

By 1566 Sir Henry Sidney became Lord-deputy, 
not now in the room of another, but fully appointed. 
With the possible exception of Sir John Perrot, he 
■ was certainly the ablest of all the viceroys to whom 
Elizabeth committed power in Ireland. Unlike 
others he had the advantage, too, of having served 
first in the country in subordinate capacities, and so 
earning his experience. He even seems to have been 
fairly popular, which, considering the nature of some 
of his proceedings, throws a somewhat sinister light, 
it must be owned, upon those of his successors and 
predecessors. 

After the death and defeat of Shane the Proud a 
lull took place, and the new deputy took the oppor- 
tunity of making a progress through the south and 
west of the island, which he reports to be all terribly 
wasted by war. Many districts, he says, " had but one- 
twentieth part of their former population." Galway, 
worn out by incessant attacks, could scarcely defend 
her walls. Athenry had but four respectable house- 
holders left, who "sadly presenting the rusty keys 
of their once famous town, confessed themselves unable 
to defend it." 




SIR HENRY SIDNEY, LORD-DEPUTY FROM I565 TO 1587. 
[From an engraving by Harding.) 



176 BETWEEN TWO STORMS. 

Sidney was one of the first to relinquish what had 
hitherto been the favourite and traditional policy of 
all English governors, that, namely, of playing one 
great lord or chieftain against another, and to 
attempt the larger task of putting down and punish- 
ing all signs of insubordination especially in the great. 
In this respect he was the political parent of Strafford, 
who acted the same part sixty years later. He had 
not — any more than his great successor — to reproach 
himself either with feebleness in the execution of 
his policy. The number of military executions that 
mark his progress seem to have startled his own 
coadjutors, and even to have evoked some slight 
remonstrance from Elizabeth herself " Down they 
go at every corner ! " the Lord-deputy writes at this 
time triumphantly in an account of his own proceed- 
ings, " and down, God willing, they shall go." 

A plan for appointing presidents of provinces had 
been a favourite with the late deputy, Sussex, and 
was now revived. Sir Edward Fitton, one of the 
judges of the Queen's Bench, was appointed to the 
province of Connaught — a miserably poor appoint- 
ment as it turned out ; Sir John Perrot a little later 
to Munster ; Leinster for the present the deputy 
reserved for himself This done he returned, first 
pausing to arrest the Earl of Desmond and carrying 
him and his brother captive to Dublin and eventually 
to London, where according to the queen's orders he 
was to be brought in order that she might adjudicate 
herself in the quarrel between him and Ormond. 

The two earls — they were stepson and stepfather by 
the way — had for years been at fierce feud, a feud 



MILITARY COLONIES. 1 77 

which had desolated the greater part of the South of 
Ireland. It was a question of titles and ownership, 
and therefore exclusively one for the lawyers. The 
queen, however, was resolved that it should be de- 
cided in Ormond's favour. Ormond was " sib to 
the Boleyns ; " Ormond had been the playmate of 
" that sainted young Solomon, King Edward," and 
Ormond therefore, it was quite clear, must know 
whether the lands were his own or not. 

Against the present Desmond nothing worse was 
charged than that he had enforced what he considered 
his pal-atinate rights in the old, high-handed, time- 
immemorial fashion. His father, however, had been 
in league with Spain, and he himself was held to be 
contumacious, and had never been on good terms with 
any of the deputies. 

On this occasion he had, however, surrendered 
himself voluntarily to Sidney. Nevertheless, upon 
his arrival he was kept a close prisoner, and upon 
attempting, sometime afterwards, to escape, was seized, 
and only received his life on condition of surren- 
dering the whole of his ancestral estates to the 
Crown, a surrender which happened to fit in very con- 
veniently with a plan upon which the attention of the 
English Council was at that time turned. 

The expenses of Ireland were desperately heavy, 
and Elizabeth's frugal soul was bent upon some plan 
for their reduction. A scheme for reducing the cost 
of police duty by means of a system of military 
colonies had long been a favourite one, and an oppor- 
tunity now occurred for turning it into practice. A 
number of men of family, chiefly from Devonshire 



178 BETWEEN TWO STORMS. 

and Somersetshire, undertook to migrate in a body 
to Ireland, taking with them their own farm ser- 
vants, their farm implements, and everything neces- 
sary for the work of colonization. The leader of 
these men was Sir Peter Carew, who held a shadowy 
claim over a vast tract of territory-, dating from the 
reign of Henry II., a claim which, however, had been 
effectually disposed of by the lawyers. The scheme 
as it was first proposed was a truly gigantic one. A 
line was to be drawn from Limerick to Cork, and 
everything south of that line was to be given over to 
the adventurers. As for the natives, they said, they 
would undertake to settle with them. All they re- 
quired was the queen's permission. Everything else 
they could do for themselves. 

So heroic a measure was not to be put in force at 
once. As far as Carew's claims went, he took the 
matter, however, into his own hands by forcibly ex- 
pelling the occupiers of the lands in question, and 
putting his own retainers into them. As fortune 
would have it, amongst the first lands thus laid hold 
of were some belonging to the Butlers, brothers of 
Lord Ormond, and therefor© probably the only Irish 
landowners whose cry for justice was pretty certain 
just then to be heard in high quarters. Horrible tales 
of the atrocities committed by Carew and his band 
was reported by Sir Edward Butler, who upon his 
side was not slow to commit retaliations of the same 
sort. A spasm of anger, and a wild dread of coming 
contingencies flew through the whole South of Ire- 
land. Sir James Fitzmaurice, cousin of the Earl of 
Desmond, broke into open rebellion ; so did also both' 



PACIFICATION OF ORMOND. 179 

the younger Butlers. Ormond himself, who was in 
England, was as angry as the fiercest, and informed 
Cecil in plain terms that "if the lands of good sub- 
jects were not to be safe, he for one would be a good 
subject no longer." 

It was no part of the policy of the Government to 
alienate the one man in Ireland upon whose loyalty they 
could depend at a pinch. By the personal efforts of the 
queen his wrath was at last pacified, and he agreed 
to accept her earnest assurance that towards him at 
least no injury was intended. This done, he induced 
his brothers to withdraw from the alliance, while Sir 
Henry Sidney, sword in hand, went into Munster and 
carried out the work of pacification in the usual fashion, 
burning villages, destroying the harvest, driving off 
cattle, blowing up castles, and hanging their garrisons 
in strings over the battlements. After which he 
marched to Connaught, leaving Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
behind him to keep order in the south. 

For more than two years Sir James Fitzmaurice 
continued to hold out in his rocky fastness amongst 
the Galtese mountains. A sort of grim humour 
pervades the relations between him and Sir John 
Perrot, the new President of Munster. Perrot had 
boasted upon his arrival that he would soon " hunt 
that fox out of his hole." The fox, however, showed 
a disposition to take the part of the lion, sallying out 
unexpectedly, ravaging the entire district, burning 
Kilmallock, and returning again to his mountains 
before he could be interfered with. The following 
year he marched intoUlster, and on his way home burnt 
Athlone, the English garrison there looking help- 



l8o BETWEEN TWO STORMS. 

lessly on ; joined the two Mac-an-Earlas as they 
were called, the sons of Lord Clanricarde, and 
assisted them to lay waste Galway, and so returned 
triumphantly across the Shannon to Tipperary. Once 
Perrot all but made an end of him, but his soldiers 
took that convenient opportunity of mutinying, and 
so baulked their leader of his prey. Another time, 
in despair of bringing the matter to any conclusion, 
the president proposed that it should be decided by 
single combat between them, a proposal which Fitz- 
maurice prudently resisted on the ground that though 
Perrot's place could no doubt readily be supplied, 
his own was less easily to fill, and that therefore for 
his followers' sake he must decline. 

At last the long game of hide-and-seek was brought 
to an end by Sir James offering to submit, to 
which Perrot agreeing, he took the required oaths in 
the church of Kilmallock, the scene of his former 
ravages, and kissed the president's sword in token 
of his regret for "the said most mischievous part." 
This farce gravely gone through, he sailed for 
France, and Munster for a while was at peace. It 
was only a temporary lull though. The Desmond 
power was still too towering to be left alone, and 
both its defenders and the Government knew that they 
were merely indulging in a little breathing time before 
the final struggle. 



XXVI. 

THE DESMOND REBELLION. 

The tale of the great Desmond rebellion which 
ended only with the ruin of that house, and with the 
slaughter or starvation of thousands of its unhappy 
adherents, is one of those abortive tragedies of which 
the whole history of Ireland is full. Our pity for the 
victims' doom, and our indignation for the cold-blooded 
cruelty with which that doom was carried out, is 
mingled with a reluctant realization of the fact that 
the state of things which preceded it was practically 
impossible, that it had become an anomaly, and 
that as such it was bound either to change or to 
perish. 

From the twelfth century onwards, the Desmond 
Geraldines had been lords, as has been seen, of a vast 
tract of Ireland, covering the greater part of Munster. 
Earlier and perhaps more completely than any of the 
other great Norman houses, they had become Irish 
chieftains rather than English subjects, and the opening 
of Elizabeth's reign found them still what for centuries 
past they had been, and with their power, within their 
own limits, little if at all curtailed. The Desmond 




?: 't- 



PREPARATIONS FOR THE STRUGGLE. 183 

of the day had still his own judges or Brehons, by 
whose judgment he professed to rule. He had 
still his own palatinate courts ; he still collected his 
dues by force, driving away his clansmen's cattle, 
and distraining those who resisted him. Only a 
few years before this time, during an expedition of 
the kind, he and Ormond had encountered one 
another in the open field at Affane, upon the 
Southern Blackwater, each side flying their banners, 
and shouting their war cries as if no queen's represen- 
tative had ever been seen or heard of. 

Such a state of things, it was plain, could not go on 
indefinitely, would not indeed have gone on as long 
but for the confusion and disorder in which the coun- 
try had always been plunged, and especially the want 
of all settled communication. The palatinate of 
Ormond, it is true, was theoretically in much the 
same state, but then Ormond was a keener sighted 
and a wiser man than Desmond, and knew when the 
times demanded redress. He had of late even made 
some effort to abolish the abominable system of 
" coyne and livery," although, as he himself frankly 
admits, he was forced to impose it again in another 
form not long afterwards. 

Sir James meanwhile had left Ireland, and at every 
Catholic Court in Europe was busily pleading for aid 
towards a crusade against England. Failing in France, 
he appealed to Philip of Spain. Philip, however, at the 
moment was not prepared to break with Elizabeth, 
whereupon Fitzmaurice, undeterred by failure, pre- 
sented himself next before the Pope. Here he was 
more successful, and preparations for the collection of 



184 THE DESMOND REBELLION. 

a considerable force was at once set on foot, a pro- 
minent English refugee, Dr. Nicolas Saunders, being 
appointed to accompany it as legate. 

Saunders, who had distinguished himself not long 
before by a violent personal attack against Elizabeth, 
-threw himself heart and soul into the enterprise, and 
in a letter to Philip pointed out all the advantages 
that were to be won by it to the Catholic cause. 
"Men," he assured him, " were not needed." Guns, 
powder, a little money, and a ship or two with stores 
from Spain, and the whole country would soon be at 
his feet. 

Although absurdly ignorant, as his own letters prove, 
of a country of which he had once been nominally 
king, Philip knew rather more probably about the 
circumstance of the case than Saunders, and he met 
these insinuating suggestions coldly. A fleet in the 
end was fitted out and sent from Civita Vecchia, 
under the command of an English adventurer Stuke- 
ley, the same Stukeley in whose favour we saw Shane 
O'Neill appealing to Elizabeth. Though it started for 
Ireland it never arrived there. Touching at Lisbon, 
Stukeley was easily persuaded to give up his first 
scheme, and to join Sebastian, king of Portugal, in a 
buccaneering expedition to Morocco, and at the battle 
of Alcansar both he and Sebastian with the greater 
part of their men were killed. 

Fitzmaurice meanwhile had gone to Spain by land, 
and had there embarked for Ireland, accompanied by 
his wife, two children, Saunders, the legate, Allen, an 
Irish priest, a small party of Italians and Spaniards, 
and a few English refugees, and bringing with them 



LANDING OF DESMOND. 185 

a banner especially consecrated by the Pope for this 
service. 

Their landing-place was Dingle, and from there 
they crossed to Smervvick, where they fortified the 
small island peninsula of Oilen-an-Oir, or " Gold 
Island," where they were joined by John and James 
Fitzgerald, brothers of the Earl of Desmond, and by 
a party of two hundred O'Flaherties from lar Con- 
naught, who, however, speedily left again. 

But Desmond still vacillated helplessly. Now that 
the time had come he could not make up his mind 
what to do, or with whom to side. He was evidently 
cowed. His three imprisonments lay heavily upon his 
soul. He knew the power of England better too than 
most of his adherents, and shrank from measuring his 
own strength against it. What he did not realize was 
that it was too late now to go back. He had stood out 
for what he considered his own rights when it would 
have been more politic to have submitted, and now 
he wanted to submit when it was only too plain 
to all who could read the signs of the times that 
the storm was already upon him, and that no humility 
or late-found loyalty could avail to avert that doom 
which hung over his house. 

If Desmond himself was slow to rise, the whole South 
of Ireland was in a state of wild tumult and excitement 
when the news of the actual arrival of Fitzmaurice and 
the legate became known. Nor in the south alone. 
In Connaught and the Pale the excitement was very 
little less. Kildare,like Desmond, held back fearing the 
personal consequences of rebellion, but all the younger 
lords of the Pale were eager to throw in their lot with 




CATHERINE, THE " OLD " COUNTESS OF DESMOND. 

(Reputed to have been killed at the age of 120 by a fall from a cherry tree.) 

(From the Burne Collection^ 



DEATH OF FITZMAURICE. 187 

Fitzmaurice. Alone amongst the Irishmen of his 
day, he possessed all the necessary qualifications of a 
leader. He had already for years successfully resisted 
the English. He was known to be a man of great 
courage and tenacity, and his reputation as a general 
stood deservedly high in the opinion of all his 
countrymen. 

That extraordinary good fortune, however, which 
has so often befallen England at awkward moments, 
and never more conspicuously than during the closing 
years of the sixteenth century, did not fail now. 
Fitzmaurice started for Connaught to encourage 
the insurrection which had been fast ripening there 
under the brutal rule of Sir Nicolas Malby, its 
governor. A trumpery quarrel had recently broken 
out between the Desmonds and the Mayo Bourkes, 
and this insignificant affair sealed the fate of what at 
one moment promised to be the most formidable 
rebellion which had ever assailed the English power 
in Ireland. At a place called Barrington's Bridge, not 
far from Limerick, where the little river Muckern 
or Mulkearn was then crossed by a ford, Fitz- 
maurice was set upon by the Bourkes. Only a iew 
followers were with him at the time, and in turning to 
expostulate with one of his assailants, he was killed 
by a pistol shot, and fell from his horse. This was 
upon the i8th of August, 1579. From that moment 
the Desmond rising was doomed. 

Desmond meanwhile still sat vacillating in his 
own castle of Askeaton, neither joining the rising, 
nor yet exerting himself vigorously to put it down. 
Malby, who had newly arrived from Connaught, took 



l88 THE DESMOND REBELLION. 

steps to hasten his decision. Ordering the earl to 
come to him, and the latter still hesitating, he marched 
against Askeaton, utterly destroyed the town up to 
the walls of the castle, burning everything in the 
neighbourhood, including the abbey and the tombs 
of the Desmonds, the castle itself only escaping 
through the lack of ammunition. 

This hint seems to have sufficed. Desmond was at 
last convinced that the time for temporizing was over. 
He rose, and all Munster rose with him. Ormond was 
still in London, and hurried over to find all in disorder. 
Drury had lately died, and the only other English com- 
mander, Malby, was crippled for want of men, and 
had been obliged to retreat into Connaught. The new 
deputy. Sir William Pelham, had just arrived, and he 
and Ormond now proceeded to make a concerted 
attack. Advancing in two separate columns they 
destroyed everything which came in their v/ay ; men, 
women, children, infants, the old, the blind, the sick all 
alike were mercilessly slaughtered ; not a roof, how- 
ever humble, was spared ; not a living creature that 
crossed their path survived to tell the tale. Lady 
Fitzmaurice and her two little children seem to have 
been amongst the number of these nameless and un- 
counted victims, for they were never heard of again. 
From Ad are and Askeaton to the extreme limits of 
Kerry, everything perishable was destroyed. The 
two commanders met one another at Tralee, and from 
this point carried on their raid in unison, and returned, 
to Askeaton and Cork, leaving the whole country a 
desert behind them. There was little or no resistance. 
The Desmond clansmen were not soldiers ; they were 



tlELP FROM SPAIN. 189 

unarmed, or armed only with spears and skeans. 
They had just lost their only leader. They could 
do nothing but sullenly watch the progress of the 
English forces. Desmond, his two brothers, and 
the legate were already fugitives. The rising seemed 
to be all but crushed, when a new incident occurred 
to spur it into a momentary vitality. 

Four Spanish vessels, containing 800 men, chiefly 
Italians, had managed to pass unperceived by the 
English admiral, Winter's, fleet, and to land at 
Smerwick, where they established themselves in Fitz- 
maurice's dismantled fort. They found everything in 
confusion. They had brought large supplies of arms 
for their Irish allies, but there were apparently no Irish 
allies to give them to. The legate and Desmond had 
first to be found, and now that arms had come, the 
Munster tribesmen had for the most part been killed 
or dispersed. Ormond and Pelham's terrible raid 
had done its work, and the heart of the rising was 
broken. The Pale, however, had now caught the fire, 
and though Kildare, its natural leader, still hung back, 
Lord Baltinglass and some of the bolder spirits flew 
to arms, and threw themselves into the Wicklow 
highlands where they joined their forces with those 
of the O'Byrnes, and were presently joined by Sir 
John of Desmond and a handful of Fitzgeralds. 

Lord Grey de Wilton had by this time arrived in 
Ireland as deputy. Utterly inexperienced in Irish 
wars, he despised and underrated the capabilities of 
those opposed to him, and refused peremptorily to listen 
to the advice of more experienced men. Hastening 
south, his advanced guard was caught by Baltinglass 



tgo THE DESMOND REBELLION. 

and the other insurgents in the valley of Glenmalure. 
A well-directed fire was poured into the defile ; the 
English troops broke, and tried to flee, and were shot 
down in numbers amongst the rocks. 

Lord Grey had no time to retrieve this disaster. 
'Leaving the Pale to the merc}^ of the successful 
rebels, he hastened south, and arrived in Kerry before 
Smervvick fort. Amongst the small band of officers 
who accompanied him on this occasion were Walter 
Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, both then young men, 
and both of them all but unknown to fame. 

The English admiral. Winter, with his fleet had 
long been delayed by bad weather. When at length 
it arrived, cannon were landed and laid in position 
upon the sand hills. Next day the siege com- 
menced. There was heavy firing on both sides, but 
the fort was soon found to be untenable. The garrison 
thereupon offered to capitulate, and an uncondi- 
tional surrender was demanded. There being no alter- 
native, these terms were accepted. Lord Grey there- 
upon " put in certain bands," under the command of 
Captain Raleigh. "The Spaniard," says Spenser, 
who was an eye-witness of the whole scene. " did 
absolutely yield himself, and the fort, and all therein, 
and only asked mercy." This, "it was not thought 
good," he adds, "to show them." They were accordingly 
all slaughtered in cold blood, a few women and priests 
who were with them hanged, the officers being reserved 
for ransom. "There was no other way," Spenser 
observes in conclusion, " but to make that end of 
them as thus was done." ^ 

^ "View of the State of Ireland," pp. 5, 1 1. 



bESMONb A FUGITIVE. Igt 

This piece of work satisfactorily finished, Grey 
returned rapidly to Dublin to crush the Leinster 
insurgents. Kildare and Delvin, though they had 
kept themselves clear of the rebellion, were arrested 
and thrown into prison. Small bands of troopers 
were sent into the Wicklow mountains to hunt out 
the insurgents. Baltinglass escaped to the Continent, 
but the two Eustaces his brothers, with Garrot O'Toole 
and Feagh McHugh were caught, killed, and their 
heads sent to Dublin. Clanricarde's two sons, the 
Mac-an-Earlas, were out in the Connemara mountains 
and could not be got at ; but Malby again overran 
their country, burning houses and slaughtering without 
mercy. In Dublin, the Anglo-Irishmen of the Pale 
were being brought to trial for treason, and hung or 
beheaded in batches. Kildare was sent to England 
to die in the Tower. With the exception of the North, 
which on this occasion had kept quiet, the whole 
country had become one great reeking shambles ; 
what sword and rope and torch had spared, famine 
came in to complete. 

The Earl of Desmond was now a houseless fugitive, 
hunted like a wolf or mad dog through the valleys 
and over the mountains of his own ancestral " king- 
dom." His brothers had already fallen. Sir John 
Fitzgerald had been killed near Cork, and his body 
hung head downwards, by Raleigh's order, upon the 
bridge of the river Lee. The other brother, Sir James, 
had met with a similar fate. Saunders, the legate, had 
died of cold and exposure. Desmond alone escaped, 
time after time, and month after month. Hunted, des- 
perate, in want of the bare necessities of life, he was still 



Ig2 THE: DESMOND REBELLION. 

in his own eyes the Desmond, ancestral owner of nearly 
a hundred miles of territory. Never in his most suc- 
cessful period a man of any particular strength of 
character, sheer pride seems to have upheld him now. 
He scorned to make terms with his hated enemy, 
Ormond. If he yielded to any one, he sent word, it 
would be only to the queen herself in person. He 
was not given the chance. Hunted over the Slievemish 
mountains, with the price of ;^i,ooo on his head, one 
by one the trusty companions who had clung to him 
so faithfully were taken and killed. His own course 
could inevitably be but a short one. News reached 
the English captain at Castlemain one night that the 
prey was not far off. A dozen English soldiers stole 
up the stream in the grey of the morning. The cabin 
where the Desmond lay was surrounded, the door 
broken in, and the earl stabbed before there was time 
for him to spring from his bed. The tragedy had now 
been played out to the bitterest end. As formerly 
with the Leinster Geraldines, so now with the Mun- 
ster ones, of the direct heirs of the house only a 
single child was left, a feeble boy, afterwards known 
by the significant title of the " Tower Earl," with the 
extinguishing of whose- sickly tenure of life the very 
name of Desmond ceases to appear upon the page of 
Irish history. 



XXVII. 



BETWEEN TWO MORE STORMS. 



Two great risings against Elizabeth's power in 
Ireland had thus been met and suppressed. A third 
and a still more formidable one was yet to come. The 
interval was filled with renewed efforts at colonization 
upon a yet larger scale than before. Munster, which 
at the beginning of the Desmond rising had been 
accounted the most fertile province in Ireland, was 
now little better than a desert. Not once or twice 
but many times the harvest had been burnt and de- 
stroyed, and great as had been the slaughter, numerous 
as were the executions, they had been far eclipsed by 
the multitude of those who had died of sheer famine. 

Spenser's evidence upon this point has been often 
quoted, but no other words will bring the picture 
before us in the same simple, awful vividness ; nor 
must it be forgotten that the man who tells it was 
under no temptation to exaggerate having himself 
been a sharer in the deeds which had produced so 
sickening a calamity. 

" They were brought to such wretchedness," he 
says, " that any stony heart would rue the same, 
Out of every corner of the woods and glens, they 



194 BETWEEN TWO MORE STORMS. 

came, creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs 
could not bear them. They looked like anatomies of 
death ; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their 
graves. They did eat the dead carrions, where they 
did find them, yea and one another soon after, in as 
much as the very carcases they spared not to scrape 
out of their graves ; and if they found a plot of 
watercresses or shamrocks, there they thronged as to 
a feast." 

To replace this older population, thus starved, 
slaughtered, made away with by sword and pestilence 
with new colonists was the scheme of the hour. 
Desmond's vast estate, covering nearly six hundred 
thousand Irish acres, not counting waste land, had all 
been declared forfeit to the Crown. This and a con- 
siderable portion of territory also forfeit in Leinster 
was now offered to English colonists upon the most 
advantageous terms. No rent was to be paid at first, 
and for ten years the undertakers were to be allowed 
to send their exports duty free. 

Many eminent names figure in the long list of 
(these " undertakers " ; amongst them Sir Walter 
Raleigh, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Wareham St 
Leger, Edmund Spenser himself, Sir Thomas Norris, 
and others, all of whom received grants of different 
portions. But " the greater," says Leland, " their 
rank and consequence, the more were they emboldened 
to neglect the terms of their grant." Instead of com- 
pleting their stipulated number of tenantry, the same 
persons often were admitted as tenants to different 
undertakers, and in the same seniory sometimes 
served at once as freeholder, leaseholder, and copy- 



FAILURE OF COLONIZATION SCHEME. 195 

holder, so as to fill up the necessary number of each 
denomination. 

The whole scheme of colonization proved, in short, 
a miserable failure. English farmers and labourers 
declined to come over in sufficient numbers. Those 
that did come left again in despair after a time. The 
dispossessed owners hung about, and raided the goods 
of the settlers whenever opportunity offered. The 
exasperation on both sides increased as years went 
on ; the intruders becoming fewer and more tyrannical, 
the natives rapidly growing more numerous and more 
desperate. It was plain that the struggle would break 
out again at the first chance which offered itself. 

That occasion arose not in Munster itself, but at 
the opposite end of the island. In Ulster the great 
southern rising had produced singularly little excite- 
ment. The chiefs for the most part had remained 
aloof, and to a great degree, loyal. The O'Don- 
nells, who had been reinstated it will be remem- 
bered in their own territory by Sidney, kept the 
peace. Sir John Perrot, who after the departure 
of Grey became Lord-deputy, seems in spite of his 
severity to have won confidence. Old Tyrlough 
Luinagh who had been elected O'Neill at the death of 
Shane, seems even to have felt a personal attachment 
for him, which is humorously shown by his con- 
senting on several occasions to appear at his court in 
English attire, habiliments which the Irish, like the 
the Scotch chiefs, objected to strongly as tending 
to make them ridiculous. " Prythee at least, my 
lord," he is reported to have said on one of these 
occasions, " let my chaplain attend me in his Irish 




LORD-DEPUTY FROM 1584 TO 1 = 



ThyAim-Jluit, 



FiTZ William's search for treasure, tg'j 

mantle, that so your English rabble may be directed 
from my uncouth figure and laugh at him." 

Perrot, however, had now fallen under the royal 
displeasure ; had been recalled and sent to the 
Tower, a common enough climax in those days to 
years spent in the arduous Irish service. His place 
was taken in 1588 by Sir William Fitzwilliam, who 
had held it nearly thirty years earlier. Fitzwilliam 
was a man of very inferior calibre to Perrot. Avari- 
cious by nature he had been highly dissatisfied with 
the poor rewards which his forme'r services had ob- 
tained. Upon making some remonstrance to that 
effect he had been told that the " position of an Irish 
Lord-deputy was an honourable one and should 
challenge no reward." Upon this hint he seems now 
to have acted. Since the Lord-deputy was not to be 
better rewarded, the Lord-deputy, he apparently con- 
cluded, had better help himself The Spanish Armada 
had been destroyed a few years back, and ships be- 
longing to it had been strewed in dismal wreck all 
along the North, South, and West coasts of Ireland. 
It was believed that much gold had been hidden away 
by the wretched survivors, and fired with the hope of 
laying his own hands upon this treasure, Sir William 
first issued a permission for searching, and then started 
himself upon the search. He marched into Ulster in 
the dead of winter, at considerable cost to the State, 
and with absolutely no result. Either, as was most 
likely, there was no treasure, or the treasure had been 
well hidden. Furious at this disappointment he ar- 
rested two upon his own showing of the most loyal 
and law-abiding landowners in Ulster, Sir Owen 



igS BETWEEN TWO MORE STORAlS. 

McToole and Sir John O'Dogherty ; dragged them 
back to Dublin with him, flung them into the castle, 
and demanded a large sum for their liberation. 

This was a high-handed proceeding in all conscience, 
but there was worse to come ; it seemed as if the 
new deputy had laid himself out for the task of in- 
flaming Ulster to the highest possible pitch of exaspe- 
ration, and so of once more awakening the scarce extin- 
guished flames of civil war. McMahon, the chief of 
Monaghan, had surrendered his lands, held previously 
by tanistry, and had received a new grant of them 
under the broad seal of England, to himself and 
his heirs male, and failing such heirs to his brother 
Hugh. At his death Hugh went to Dublin and re- 
quested to be put into possession of his inheritance. 
This Fitzvvilliam agreed to, and returned with him 
to Monaghan, apparently for the purpose. Hardly 
had he arrived there, however, before he trumped up 
an accusation to the effect that Hugh McMahon 
had collected rents two years previously by force — 
the only method, it may be said in passing, by which 
in those unsettled parts of the country rents ever were 
collected at all. It was not an offence by law being 
committed outside the shire, and he was therefore tried 
for it by court-martial. He was brought before a 
jury of private soldiers, condemned, and executed in 
two days. His estate was thereupon broken up, the 
greater part of it being divided between Sir Henry Bag- 
nail, three or four English officers, and some Dublin 
lawyers, the Crown reserving for itself a quit rent. 
Little wonder if the other Ulster landowners felt that 
their turn would come next, and that no loyalty could 



THE EARL OF TYRONE. I99 

assure a man's safety so long as he had anything to 
lose that was worth the taking. 

At this time the natural leader of the province was 
not Tyrlough Luinagh, who though called the O'Neill 
was an old man and failing fast. The real leader was 
Hugh O'Neill, son of Matthew the first Baron of 
Dungannon, who had been killed, it will be remem- 
bered, by Shane O'Neill, by whose connivance Hugh's 
elder brother had also, it was believed, been made 
away with. Hugh had been educated in England, 
had been much at Court, and had found favour with 
Elizabeth, who had confirmed him in the title of Earl 
of Tyrone which had been originally granted to his 
grandfather. 

Tyrone was the very antipodes of Shane, the last 
great O'Neill leader. He was much more, in fact, of an 
English politician and courtier than an Irish chieftain. 
He had served in the English army ; had fought with 
credit under Grey in Munster, and was intimately 
acquainted with all the leading Englishmen of the 
day. Even his religion, unlike that of most Irish 
Catholics of the day, seems to have sat but lightly 
upon him. Captain Lee, an English officer, quar- 
tered in Ulster, in a very interesting letter to the 
queen written about this time, assures her confiden- 
tially that, although a Roman Catholic, he " is less 
dangerously or hurtfully so than some of the greatest 
in the English Pale," for that when he accompanied 
the Lord-deputy to church " he will stay and hear a 
sermon ; " whereas they " when they have reached the 
church door depart as if they were wild cats." He 
adds, as a further recommendation, that by way of 



200 BETWEEN TWO MORE STORMS. 

domestic chaplain he has at present but " one little 
cub of an English priest." "Lord Essex in still plainer 
terms told Tyrone himself when he was posing as the 
champion of Catholicism : " Dost t/iou talk of a free 
exercise of religion ! Why thou carest as little for 
religion as my horse." 

Such a man was little likely to rush blindly into a 
rebellion in which he had much to lose and little to 
gain. He knew, as few Irishmen knew, the strength 
of England. He knew something also of Spain, 
and of what had come of trusting for help in that 
direction. Hitherto, therefore, his influence had been 
steadily thrown upon the side of order. He had 
more than once assisted the deputy to put down 
risings in the north, and, on the whole, had borne his 
part loyally as a dutiful subject of the queen. 

Now, however, he had come to a point where the 
ways branched. He had to choose his future course, 
and there were many causes pushing him all but 
irresistibly into an attitude of rebellion. One of 
these was the arbitrary arrest of his brother-in-law 
Hugh O'Donnell, called Red Hugh, who had been 
induced to come on board a Government vessel by 
means of a friendly invitation, and had been then 
and there seized, flung under hatches, and carried off 
as a hostage to Dublin Castle, from which, after years 
of imprisonment, he had managed to escape by 
stealth in the dead of winter, and arrived half dead 
of cold and exposure in his own country, where his 
treatment had aroused the bitterest and most implac- 
able hostility in the breast of all the clan. A more 
directly personal affair, and the one that probably 



REVOLT OF TYRONE. 201 

more than any other single cause pushed Tyrone over 
the frontiers of rebelHon, was the following. Upon the 
death of his wife he had fallen in love with Bagnall, 
the Lord-Marshall's, sister, and had asked for her hand. 
This Bagnall, for some reason, refused, whereupon 
Tyrone, having already won the lady's heart, carried 
her off, and they were married, an act which the 
marshall never forgave. 

From that moment he became his implacable 
enemy, made use of his position to ply the queen 
and Council with accusations against his brother- 
in-law, and when Tyrone replied to those charges 
the answers were intercepted. It took some time to 
undermine Elizabeth's confidence in the earl, having 
previously had many proofs of his loyalty. It took 
some time, too, to induce Tyrone himself to go in the 
direction in which every event seemed now to be 
pushing him. Once, however, his mind was made up 
and his retreat cut off, he set to work at his prepa- 
rations upon a scale which soon showed the Govern- 
ment that they had this time no fiery half-savage 
Shane, no incapable vacillating Desmond to deal 
with. 

An alliance with the O'Donnells and the other chiefs 
of the north was his first step. He was by no means 
to be contented however with a merely provincial 
rising. He despatched messages to Connaught, and 
enlisted the Burkes in the affair ; also the O'Connor of 
Sligo, the McDermot and other western chiefs. In 
Wicklow the O'Byrnes, always ready for a fray, agreed 
to join the revolt, with all that was left of the 
tribes of Leix and Offaly. These, with the Kava- 



202 



BET-WEEN TWO MORE STORMS. 



naghs and others, united to form a solemn union, 
binding themselves to stand or fall together. To 
Spain Tyrone sent letters urging the necessity of an 
immediate despatch of troops. With the Pope he 
also put himself into communication, and the ris- 
ing was openly and avowedly declared to be a 
Catholic one. Just at this juncture old Tyrlough 
Luinagh died, and Tyrone forthwith assumed the 
soul-stirrmg name of " The O'Neill " for himself. Let 
the Spanish allies only arrive in time and the rule of 
England it was confidently declared would shortly in 
Ireland be a thing of the past. 




INITIAL LETTER FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS. 




XXVIIL 

BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD. 

The northern river Blackwater — there are at least 
three Blackwaters in Ireland — forms the southern 
boundary of the county Tyrone, which takes a suc- 
cession of deep loops or elbows in order to follow its 
windings. At the end of the sixteenth century and 
for centuries previously it had marked the boundary 
of the territory of the chiefs or princes of Tyrone, 
and here, therefore, it was that the struggle between 
the earl and the queen's troops advancing from 
Dublin was necessarily fought out. 

A good deal of desultory fighting took place at 
first, without any marked result upon either side. 
Tyrone got possession of the English fort which 
commanded the passage of the river, but it was in 
turn snatched from him by the lately arrived deputy, 
Lord Borough, who, however, was so severely wounded 
in the affray that he had to fall back upon Newry, 
where he not long afterwards died. Ireland was 
thus for the moment without a governor, and when 
after a temporary armistice, which Tyrone spun out 
as long as possible in hopes of his Spanish allies 
appearing, hostilities recommenced, the command de- 



204 BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD. 

volved upon his brother-in-law and chief enemy, Sir 
Henry Bagnall. 

Bagnall had between four and five thousand men 
under him, Tyrone having about the same number, or 
a httle less. A few years previously a very small 
body of English troops had been able, as we have 
seen, to put to flight fully three times their own 
number of Irish. In the last dozen years circum- 
stances however had in this respect very materially 
changed. The Desmond followers had been for the 
most part armed only with skeans and spears, much 
as their ancestors had been under Brian Boru, One 
English soldier armed with a gun could put to flight 
a dozen such assailants as easily as a sportsman a 
dozen wolves. Tyrone's men, on the other hand, were 
almost as well armed as their antagonists. Some of 
these arms had come from Spain, others had been 
purchased at high prices from the English soldiery, 
others again from dealers in Dublin and elsewhere. 
Man to man, and with equal arms, the Ulster men 
were fully equal to their assailants, as they were now 
about to prove. 

In August, 1598, Bagnall advancing from the south 
found Tyrone engaged in a renewed attack upon the 
fort of Blackwater, which he had invested, and was 
endeavouring to reduce by famine. At the advance 
of' Bagnall he withdrew hovv^ever to a strong position 
a few miles from the fort, and there awaited attack. 

The battle was not long delayed. The bitter 
personal hatred which animated the two leaders seems 
to have communicated itself to the men, and the 
struggle was unprecedently fierce and bloody. In 



DEFEAT OF BAGNALL. 205 

the thick of the engagement Bagnall, Hfting his 
beaver for a moment to get air, was shot through the 
forehead and fell. His fall was followed by the com- 
plete rout of his army. Fifteen hundred soldiers 
and thirteen officers were killed, thirty-four flags 
taken, and all the artillery, ammunition, and pro- 
visions fell into the victor's hands. The fqrt im- 
mediately surrendered, and the remains of the royal 
army fled in confusion to Armagh, which shortly 
abandoning, they again fled south, not attempting 
to re-form until they took refuge at last in Dundalk. 
Such an event as this could have but one result. 
All the waverers were decided, and all determined to 
throw in their lot with the victor. The talisman 
of success is of more vital importance to an Irish 
arm.y than probably to any other, not because 
the courage of its soldiers is less, but because their 
imagination is greater, and more easily worked upon. 
A soldier is probably better without too much imagi- 
nation. If the auguries are unfavourable he in- 
stinctively augments, and exaggerates them tenfold. 
Now, however, all the auguries were favourable. 
Hope stood high. The Catholic cause had never 
before showed so favourably. From Malin Head to 
Cape Clear all Ireland was in a wild buzz of excite- 
ment, and every fighting kern and gallowglass clutched 
his pike with a sense of coming triumph. 




XXIX. 

THE ESSEX FAILURE. 

Elizabeth was now nearly seventy years of age, 
and this was her third war in Ireland. Nevertheless, 
she and her Council girded themselves resolutely to 
the struggle. There could at least be no half-hearted 
measure now ; no petty pleas of economy ; no pe- 
nurious doling out of men and money. No one, not 
even the queen herself, could reasonably question the 
gravity of the crisis. 

The next person to appear upon the scene is Robert 
Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose brilliant mercurial 
iigure flashes for a moment across the wild and 
troubled stage of Ireland, only the next to vanish 
like some Will-o'-the-wisp into an abyss of darkness 
and disaster. 

At that moment his fame as a soldier stood as high 
if not higher than that of any of his cotemporaries. 
If Raleigh or Sidney had more military genius, if his 
old rival. Sir Henry Norris, was a more capable 
general, the young earl had eclipsed all others in 
mere dash and brilliancy, and within the last few 
years had dazzled the eyes of the whole nation by the 
success of his famous feat in Spain, " The most 



2o8 THE ESSEX FAILURE. 

brilliant exploit," says Lord Macaulay, "achieved 
by English arms upon the Continent, between Agin- 
court and Blenheim." 

Essex was now summoned to the queen and given 
the supreme command in Ireland, with orders to pro- 
ceed at once to the reduction of Tyrone. An army of 
20,000 infantry and 1,300 horse were placed under 
him, and the title of Lord-Lieutenant conferred, 
which had not been granted to any one under royal 
blood for centuries. He started with a brilliant train, 
including a number of well-born volunteers, who 
gladly offered their services to the popular favourite, 
and landed in Dublin early in the month of April, 

1599- 

His disasters seem to have dated from the very 
moment of his setting foot on Irish soil. Contrary 
to orders, he had appointed his relative, the Earl of 
Southampton, to the command of the horse, an ap- 
pointment which even after peremptory orders from, 
the queen he declined to cancel. He went south 
when he was eagerly expected to go north. Spent a 
whole fortnight in taking the single castle of Cahir ; 
lingered about the Limerick woods in pursuit of a 
nephew of the late Desmond, derisively known as the 
" Sugane Earl," or " Earl of Straw," who in the absence 
of the young heir had collected the remnants of the 
Desmond followers about him, and was in league with 
Tyrone. A few weeks later a party of English soldiers 
were surprised by the O'Byrnes in Wicklow, and fled 
shamefully ; while almost at the same moment — by a 
misfortune which was certainly no fault of Essex's, but 
which went to swell the list of his disasters — Sir 



ARMISTICE WITH TYRONE. 209 

Conyers Clifford, the gallant governor of Connaught, 
was defeated by the O'Donnells in a skirmish among 
the Curlew mountains, and both he and Sir Alexander 
Ratcliffe, the second in command, left dead upon the 
field. 

Essex's very virtues and better qualities, in fact, 
were all against him in this fatal service. His 
natural chivalrousness, his keen perception of in- 
justice, a certain elevation of mind which debarred 
him from taking the stereotyped English official 
view of the intricate Irish problem ; an indepen- 
dence of vulgar motives which made him prone to 
see two sides of a question — even where his own in- 
terests required that he should see but one — all these 
were against him ; all tended to make him seem 
vacillating and ineffective ; all helped to bring about 
that failure which has made his six months of com- 
mand in Ireland the opprobrium ever since of his- 
torians. 

Even when, after more than one furiously reproachful 
letter from the queen, and after his army had been re- 
cruited by an additional force of two thousand men, he 
at last started for the north, nothing of any impor- 
tance happened. He and Tyrone held an amicable and 
unwitnessed conference at a ford of the little river 
Lagan, at which the enemies of the viceroy did not 
scruple afterwards to assert that treason had been 
concocted. What, at any rate, is certain is that Essex 
agreed to an armistice, which, with so overwhelm- 
ing a force at his own disposal, naturally awakened 
no little anger and astonishment. Tyrone's personal 
courtesy evidently produced a strong effect upon the 



2IO THE ESSEX FAILURE. 

other earl. They were old acquaintances, and Tyrone 
was no doubt able to place his case in strong relief. 
Essex, too, had that generosity of mind which made 
him inconveniently open to expostulation, and he knew 
probably well enough that the wrongs of which 
Tyrone complained were far from imaginary ones. 

Another and a yet more furious letter from the queen 
startled him for his own safety. Availing himself of a 
permission he had brought with him to return should 
occasion seem to require it, he left the command in 
the hands of subordinates, flew to Dublin, and em- 
barked immediately for England. What befel him 
upon his arrival is familiar to every school child, and 
the relation of it must not be allowed to divert us 
from following the further course of events in Ireland. 




CINERARY URN. 

{from a Tumulus near Dublin. 



XXX. 

END OF THE TYRONE REBELLION. 

A VERY different man from the chivalrous and 
quixotic Essex now took the reins. Charles Blount, 
Lord Mountjoy, had expected to be sent to Ireland 
when Essex had suddenly been appointed with 
ampler powers and a more extended consequence, 
and the disappointment had caused him to follow 
the course of that ill-starred favourite with ill-con- 
cealed jealousy to its tragic end. 

Mountjoy was himself a man of cold, clear-sighted, 
self-seeking temperament. In almost all English 
histories dealing with this period his steadiness and 
solid unshowy qualities are contrasted with Essex's 
flightiness and failure, to the natural disadvantage of 
the latter. This, however, is not perhaps quite the 
last word upon the matter, and it is only fair to Essex 
that this should be realized. 

No master hand has as yet made this special portion 
of Irish history his own. When he does so — if the 
keen edge of his perceptions, that is to say, has not 
been dimmed by too strong an earlier prepossession 
— we shall perhaps learn that the admitted failure of 
Essex, so disastrous to himself, was more honour- 
able than the admitted and the well-rewarded success 




CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF ORMOND BY THE o'MORES. 

{From the " Pacata Hibei'iiia," of Sir G. Carew.) 

I. Ormond and his followers ; 2. Rebel horse and foot ; 3. Rebels concealed in 
woods ; 4. Bogs. 



SUCCESS OF MOUNTyOY. 213 

of Mountjoy. The situation, as every English leader 
soon found, was one that admitted of no possible 
fellowship between two alternatives, success and 
pity ; between the commonest and most elementary 
dictates of humanity, and the approval of the queen 
and her Council. There was but one method by 
which a success could be assured, and this was the 
method which Mountjoy now pushed relentlessly, 
and from which Essex's more sensitively attuned 
nature evidently shrank. The enemies it was neces- 
sary to annihilate were not so much Tyrone's 
soldiers, as the poor, the feeble, the helpless, the old, 
the women, and the little children. Famine — oddly 
called by Edward III. the "gentlest of war's hand- 
maids " — was here the only certain, perhaps the 
only possible agent. By it, and by it alone, the germs 
of insurrection could be stamped out and blighted as 
it were at their very birth. 

There was no further shrinking either from its 
application. Mountjoy established niilitary stations 
at different points in the north, and proceeded to 
demolish everything that lay between them. With a 
deliberation which left little to be desired he made 
his soldiers destroy every living speck of green that 
was to be seen, burn every roof, and slaughter every 
beast which could not be conveniently driven into 
camp. With the aid of Sir George Carew, who 
enthusiastically endorsed his policy, and has left us 
a minute account of their proceedings, they swept 
the country before them. The English columns 
moved steadily from point to point, establishing them- 
selves wherever they went, in strongly fortified out- 



214 END OF THE TYRONE REBELLION, 

posts, from which points flying detachments were sent 
to ravage all the intermediate districts. The ground 
was burnt to the very sod ; all harvest utterly cleared 
away ; starvation in its most grisly forms again began 
to stalk the land ; the people perished by tens of thou- 
'sands, and the tales told by eye-witnesses of what 
they themselves had seen at this time are too sickening 
to be allowed needlessly to blacken these pages. 

As a policy nothing, however, could be more bril- 
liantly successful. At the arrival of Mountjoy the 
English power in Ireland was at about the lowest 
ebb it ever reached under the Tudors. Ormond, 
the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, had recently 
been taken captive by the O'Mores in Leinster, by 
whom he was held for an enormous ransom. Success, 
with all its glittering train, seemed to have gone 
bodily over to Tyrone. There was hardly a town in 
the whole island that remained in the hands of the 
Deputy. Before Mountjoy left all this was simply 
reversed. Not only had the royal power regained 
everything that had been snatched from it, but from 
sea to sea it stood upon a far firmer and stronger basis 
than it had ever done before. 

Gradually, as the area over which the power of the 
Deputy and his able assistant grew wider and wider, 
that of the Tyrone fell away and faded. " The con- 
sequence of an Irish chieftain above all others," 
observes Leland most weightily, " depended upon 
opinion." A true success, that is to say, of which the 
gleaming plumes and trophies were not immediately 
visible, would have been far more disastrous than a 
real failure which could have been sfilded over with a 



ARRIVAL OF SPANIARDS. 21 5 

little delusive gleam of triumph. There was no gleams, 
real or imaginary, now. Tyrone was fast coming to 
the end of his resources. Surrender or starvation 
were staring him with ugly insistence in the face. 
The war, in fact, was on the point of dying out from 
sheer exhaustion, when a new element came to 
infuse momentary courage into the breasts of the 
insurgents. Fifty Spanish ships, with Don Juan 
d'Aguilar and three thousand soldiers on board, sailed 
into Kinsale harbour, where they proceeded to dis- 
embark and to occupy the town. 

The instant the news of this landing reached 
Mountjoy, he, with characteristic vigour, hurried 
south with every soldier he could collect, so as to 
cut off the new arrivals before their allies had 
time to appear. Not a moment was lost. The 
Spaniards had landed on the 20th of September, 1601, 
and by the 23rd the first English soldiers appeared 
before the town, and before the end of the month 
Mountjoy and Carew had concentrated every man 
they had in Ireland around Kinsale. 

Tyrone and O'Donnell also hurried south, but their 
progress was slower, and when they arrived they 
found their allies closely besieged on all sides. Taking 
advantage of a frost, which had made the bogs pas- 
sable, O'Donnell stole round the English forces and 
joined another party of Spaniards who had just 
effected a landing at Castlehaven. All Kerry was now 
up in arms, under two local chiefs, O'Sullivan Beare 
and O'Driscoll. The struggle had resolved itself into 
the question which side could hold out longest. The 
English had the command of the sea, but were the 



2l6 END OF THE TYRONE REBELLION. 

Spanish fleet to return their position would become to 
the last degree perilous. The game for Tyrone to 
play was clearly a waiting one. The Spaniards in 
Kinsale were weary however of their position, and 
urged him to try and surprise the English camp. 
Reluctantly, and against his own judgment, he con- 
sented. The surprise failed utterly. Information of 
it had already reached Carew. The English were 
under arms, and after a short struggle Tyrone's men 
gave way. Twelve hundred were killed, and the rest 
fled in disorder. The Spaniards thereupon surrendered 
Kinsale, and were allowed to re-embark for Spain ; 
many of the Irish, including O'Donnell, accompanying 
them. 

This was practically the end. Tyrone retreated to 
the north, collecting the remnants of his army as he 
went. Carew went south to wreak a summary ven- 
geance upon O'Sullivan Beare, and the other Kerry 
insurgents, while Mountjoy, following in the wake of 
Tyrone, hemmed him gradually further and further 
north, repeating at the same time that wasting process 
which had already been only too brilliantly successful. 

Tyrone had wit enough to see that the game was 
played out. On the other hand, Mountjoy was eager 
to bring the war to an end before the queen's death, 
now hourly expected. Terms were accordingly come 
to. The earl made his submission, and agreed to 
relinquish the title of O'Neill, and to abjure for ever 
all alliances with foreign powers or with any of the 
enemies of the Crown. In return he was to receive a 
full pardon for himself and his followers, and all his 
titles and lands were to be confirmed to him. 




s ^ 




IRF.I.ASU IN TlIF 



SUBMISSION OF TYRONE. 2I9 

Two days after this the queen's death was an- 
nounced. We are told that Tyrone, upon hearing of 
it, burst into a flood of tears. As he had been in arms 
against her up to a week before, it can scarcely have 
been a source of very poignant anguish. Probably he 
felt that had he guessed the imminence of the event 
he might have made better terms. 




TARA BROOCH. 



XXXI. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS. 



This was the last serious attempt on the part of 
any individual Irish chieftain to rise against the power 
of England. The next rebellion of which we shall 
hear arose from perfectly different causes, a»d was 
general rather than individual, grew indeed before its 
conclusion to the larger and more imposing dimen- 
sions of a civil war. 

In one respect this six years' struggle was less pro- 
ductive of results than either of the two previous ones. 
At the end of it, Tyrone was still Tyrone ; still 
the first of Irish subjects ; his earldom and his ances- 
tral possessions were still his. Nay, on crossing a few 
months later to England, and presenting himself to 
the English Court, he was graciously received by the 
new king, and seemed at first to stand in all respects 
as if no rebellion had been planned by him, or so 
nearly carried to a successful issue. 

This state of things was a source, as may readily be 
conceived, of boundless rage to every English officer 
and official who had taken part in the late campaign. 
To see " that damnable rebel Tyrone " apparently in 
high honour caused them to rage and gnash their 



TYRONE S ENEMIES. 221 

teeth. " How did I labour," cries one of them, " for 
that knave's destruction ! I adventured perils by sea 
and land ; went near to starving ; eat horseflesh in 
Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth 
in peace at those who did hazard their lives to destroy 
him ! " 

Sheriffs, judges, commissioners, all the new officials 
who now began to hurry to the north, shared in 
this sentiment, and all had their eyes set in wrathful 
ai^imosity upon Tyrone, all were bent in finding him 
out in some new treason. That after all that had 
happened he should end his days in peace and honour 
was not inconceivable merely, but revolting. He 
himself complained about this time that he could not 
"drink a full carouse of sack but the State in a few 
hours was advertised thereof'"' It was, in fact, an impos- 
sible situation. Tyrone was now sixty-two, and would 
have been willing enough therefore, in all probability, 
to rest and be thankful. It v/as impossible, he found, 
for him to do so. He was harassed by spies, plunged 
into litigation with regard to his seignorial rights, and 
whatever case was tried the lawyers invariably found 
for his antagonists. Rory O'Donnell, a brother of 
Red Hugh, who had been created Earl of Tyrconnel by 
James, was in a like case. Both were regarded with 
detestation by every official in Ireland ; both had not 
long before had a price set on their heads ; both, it 
was resolved by all in authority, would, sooner or 
later, therefore, begin to rebel again. 

Whether they did so or not has never been satis- 
factorily decided. The evidence on the whole goes to 
prove that they did not. The air, however, was thick 



222 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS. 

just then with plots, and in 1607, a mysterious and 
anonymous document, of which Lord Howth was 
reported to be the author, was found in the DubHn 
Council Chamber, which hinted darkly at conspira- 
cies and perils of various kinds to the State, in which 
conspiracies Tyrone, it was equally darkly hinted, 
was in some manner or other involved. 

It was rather a poor plot, still it served its turn. 
Tyrone received warning from his friends abroad that 
he was about to be arrested, and so serious was the 
peril deemed that a vessel was specially sent by them 
to bring him away in safety. He at once communi- 
cated with Tyrconnel, and after a short consultation 
the two Earls with their families resolved to take 
advantage of the opportunity and depart at once. 
This at the time, and indeed generally, has been 
construed into a proof of their guilt. It may have 
been so, but, on the other hand, it may just as well 
not have been. Had their innocence been purer 
than alabaster or whiter than the driven snow they 
were probably well advised under existing circum- 
stances in not remaining to take their trial. 

Right or wrong, with good reason or without good 
reason, they went, and after various wanderings 
reached Rome, where they were received with no 
little honour. Neither, however, long survived their 
exile. Tyrconnel died the following year, and Tyrone 
some eight years later, a sad, blind, broken-hearted 
man. 

Nothing could have been more convenient for the 
Government than this departure. Under the circum- 
stances, It meant, of course, a forfeiture of all their 



I 



FORFEITURE OF THE EARL'S ESTATES. 223 

estates. Had the extent of territory which personally 
belonged to the two exiles alone been confiscated, 
the proceeding, no doubt, would Rave been per- 
fectly legitimate. Whatever had led to it, the fact 
of their flight and consequent renouncement of 
allegiance was undeniable, and the loss of their 
estates followed almost as a matter of course. A 
far more sweeping measure than this, however^ was 
resolved upon. The lawyers, under the direction of 
the Dublin Government, so contrived matters as to 
make the area forfeited by the two earls cover no less 
a space than six entire counties, all of which were 
escheated to the Crown, regardless of the rights of 
a vast number of smaller tenants and sub-proprietors 
against whom no plea of rebellion, recently at all 
events could be urged ; a piece of injustice destined, 
as will be seen, to bear tragic fruit a generation later. 
The plan upon which this new plantation was 
carried out was projected with the utmost care by the 
lawyers, the Irish Government, and the king himself 
The former plantations in Munster were an acknow- 
ledged failure, the reason assigned being the huge size 
of the grants made to the undertakers. Many of 
these resided in England, and merely drew their 
rents, allowing Irish tenants to occupy the land. 
This mistake was now to be avoided. Only tracts 
that could be managed by a resident owner were to 
be granted, and from these the natives were to be 
entirely drawn. " As well," it was gravely stated, 
" for their greater security, as to preserve the purity 
of the English language." 

The better to ensure this important result mar- 



224 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS. 

riages were strictly forbidden between the native 
Irish and the settlers, and in order to avoid that 
ever- formidable danger the former were ordered to 
remove themselves and their belongings bodily into 
certain reserved lands set apart for them. 

The person who took the mosi. prominent part in 
this undertaking was the well-known Sir John Davis, 
a distinguished lawyer and writer, who has himself 
left us a minute account of his own and his 
colleagues' proceedings. That those proceedings 
should have aroused some slight excitement and 
dismay amongst the dispossessed owners was not, 
perhaps, astonishing, even to those engaged in it. 
In some instances, the proprietors even went the 
length of bringing lawyers from Dublin, to prove 
that their estates could not legally be forfeited 
through the attainder of the earls, and to plead, more- 
over, the king's recent proclamation which undertook 
to secure to the inhabitants their possessions. In reply 
to this. Sir John Davis and the other commissioners 
issued another proclamation. " We published," he 
says, "by proclamation in each county, what lands 
were to be granted to British undertakers, what to 
servitors, and what to natives, to the end that the 
natives should remove from the precincts allotted to 
the Britons, whereupon a clear plantation is to be 
made of English and Scottish without Irish." With 
regard to the rights of the king he is still more em- 
phatic. " Not only," he says, " his Majesty may take 
this course lawfully, but he is bound in conscience to 
do so." 

These arguments, and probably still more the evident 



NOT UNSATISFIED IN REASON. 



225 



uselessness of any resistance, seem to have had their 
effect. The discomfited owners submitted sullenly, 
and withdrew to the tracts allotted to them. In 
Sir John Davis' own neat and incisive words, " The 
natives seemed not unsatisfied in reason, though they 
remained in their passions discontented, being grieved 
to leave their possessions to strangers, which they had 
so long after their manner enjoyed." 




DOORWAY OF ST. CAEMIN'S CHURCH, INISMAIN, ARAN ISLES. 




XXXIL 

THE FIRST CONTESTED ELECTION. 

In 1613, it was resolved by the Government to 
summon an Irish ParHament, for the purpose of 
giving legality to their recent proceedings in Ulster, 
and also to pass an Act of formal attainder upon the 
two exiled earls. 

The great difficulty felt by the executive was how to 
secure an adequate Protestant majority. Even after 
the recent large introduction of Protestants the great 
mass of the freeholders, and nearly all the burgesses 
in the towns were still Roman Catholics. In the 
Upper House, indeed, the nineteen Protestant bishops 
and five temporal lords who were Protestant, made 
matters safe. The House of Commons, therefore, 
was the rub. Carew and Sir John Davis set their 
wits energetically to this problem. The new towns, 
or rather agricultural forts, in Ulster were all con- 
verted into Corporations, and each given the power 
of returning two members. The Pale and the Lein- 
ster towns, thou-gh loyal, were nearly all Catholic. In 
the west, except at Athlone, there was " no hope," 
the president reported, "of any Protestants." From 
some of the other garrison towns better thinsfs were 



THE SPEAKER — PROTESTANT OR CATHOLIC. 227 

hoped for, still there was not a little alarm on the part 
of the Government that the numbers might still come 
short. 

On the other side the Catholics were equally alive 
to the situation, and equally keen to secure a triumph. 
A belief prevailed, too, all over Ireland, that the object 
of summoning this Parliament was to carry out 
some sweeping act of confiscation, and this naturally 
added to the excitement. For the first time in Irish 
history a genuinely contested election took place. 
Both parties strained every nerve, both felt their future 
interests to depend upon the struggle. When at last 
all the members were collected it was found that the 
Government had a majority, though a narrow one, of 
twenty- four. Barely, however, had Parliament assem- 
bled, before a violent quarrel broke out over the elec- 
tion of a speaker ; the Catholic party denouncing the 
irregularity by means of which many of the elections 
had been carried, and refusing therefore to consider 
themselves bound by the decision of the majority. Sir 
John Davis had been elected speaker by the suppor- 
ters of the Government, but, during the absence of 
the latter in the division lobby, the recusants placed 
their own man, Sir John Everard, in the chair, and 
upon the return of the others a hot scuffle ensued be- 
tween the supporters of the two Sir Johns, each side 
vehemently supporting the claims of its own candidate. 
In the end, " Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Marshall, two 
gentlemen of the best quality," according to a " Pro- 
testant declaration " sent to England of the whole 
occurrence, " took Sir John Davis by the arms, and 
lifting him from the ground, placed him in the chair 



228 THE FIRST CONTESTED ELECTION. 

upon Sir John Everard's lap, requiring the latter to 
come forth of the chair ; which, he obstinately re- 
fusing, Mr. Treasurer, the Master of the Ordinance, 
and others, whose places were next the chair, laid 
their hands gently upon him, and removed him out 
of the chair, and placed Sir John Davis therein." 

The gravity with which we are assured of the gentle- 
ness of these proceedings is delightful. The recusants, 
with Sir John Everard at their head, departed we are 
further told " in most contentious manner " out of the 
House. Being asked why they did not return, they 
replied that " Those within the House are no House, 
and the Speaker is no Speaker ; but we are the House, 
and Sir John Everard is our Speaker." ^ 

Not being able to be otherwise settled, the quarrel 
was at last referred to the king, and representa- 
tives of both sides went to England to plead their 
cause. In the end twelve of the new elections were 
found to have been so illegally carried that they had 
perforce to be cancelled, but Sir John Davis was at 
the same time confirmed in the Speakership. 

After this delay the House at last got to work. A 
formal Act of attainder was passed upon Tyrone, 
Tyrconnel, and some of the other Ulster landowners. 
Every portion of Ireland was next made into shireland, 
and the last remnants of the Brehoh law abolished. 
Upon the other hand, the statutes of Kilkenny was at 
length and finally repealed. Henceforth English and 
Irish were alike to be admitted to plead their own 
cause in the courts of law. 

^ Lodges, " Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica," pp. 410-41 1. 




XXXIII. 

OLD AND NEW OWNERS. 

The zeal for Irish colonization had by no means 
subsided after the Ulster settlement had been estab- 
lished ; on the contrary, it was the favourite panacea 
of the hour, especially in the eyes of the king himself. 
After one such resounding success, why, it was asked, 
not extend so evident a blessing to the rest of Ireland ? 
"A commission to inquire into defective titles " was 
set on foot, whose duty it was to collect evidence as to 
the condition of estates, and to inquire into the titles 
of owners. The pipe rolls in Dublin and the patents, 
kept in the Tower of London were alike eagerly ran- 
sacked, and title flaws found to be discoverable with the 
most delightful facility. There was a strong feeling too 
about this time in England that something good was 
to be made of Ireland. When tens of thousands of 
acres were to be had almost for the asking, who could 
be so slow or so mean-spirited as to hang back from 
doing so. 

Something like a regular stampede of men ambi- 
tious to call themselves undertakers, began to cross 
over from the larger to the smaller island. Nor 
was the Government anxious to check this spirited 



230 OLD AND NEW OWNERS. 

impulse. In Wexford alone over 60,000 acres had 
been discovered by the lawyers to belong to the 
king, and of these a large portion were now settled 
with English undertakers. In Longford, Leitrim, 
Wicklow, and many other parts of Leinster, it was 
the same. Even where the older proprietors were 
not dispossessed heavy fines were levied in return 
for fresh grants. No proof of recent surrender or 
former agreement was allowed to count, and so in- 
geniously was the whole scheme carried out, and so 
inextricable was the jungle of legal technicalities in 
which it was involved, that what in reality was often 
sheer confiscations sounded like the most equitable of 
judicial arrangements. 

The case of the Connaught landowners is particu- 
larly characteristic, and as space dwindles rapidly, 
may serve as an example of the rest. Nearly all 
the Connaught gentry, native and Norman alike, 
had surrendered their estates either to Elizabeth 
or to her father, and had received them back again 
upon new terms. Legal transfer, however, was so 
little understood, and the times were so rough and 
wild, that few had received patents, and title-deeds 
were all but unknown. In James I.'s reign this 
omission was rectified and patents duly made out, 
for which the landowners paid a sum little short of 
^30,000, equal to nearly ;^300,ooo at the present day. 
These new patents, however, by an oversight of the 
clerks in Chancery, were neglected to be enrolled, and 
upon this plea fresh ones were called for, and fresh 
fees had to be paid by the landowners. Further it was 
announced that owing to the omission — one over 



DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CATHOLICS. 23I 

which the owners, it is clear, had no control — all the 
titles had become defective, and all the lands had 
lapsed to the Crown. The other three provinces having 
by this time received plantations, the Connaught 
landowners were naturally not slow to perceive the use 
that might be made of so awkward a technical flaw. 
To appeal against the manifest injustice of the decision 
was of little avail, but a good round sum of money 
into the king's own hands was known to rarely come 
amiss. They agreed accordingly to offer him the 
same sum that would have fallen to his share had the 
plantations been carried out. This was accepted and 
another ;^io,ooo paid, and the evil day thus for a 
while, but only, as will be seen, for a while averted. 

Charles's accession awakened a good many hopes 
in Ireland, the Catholic party especially flattering 
themselves that a king who was himself married to 
one of their faith would be likely to show some favour 
to his Catholic subjects. In this they found their 
mistake, and an attempt to open a Catholic college in 
Dublin was speedily put down by force. In other 
directions a certain amount of leniency was, however, 
extended to recusants, and Lord Falkland, who a 
few years before had succeeded Sir Oliver St. John as 
deputy, was a man of conspicuous moderation and 
tolerance. In 1629, however, he resigned, worn out 
like so many others before and after him by the diffi- 
culties with which he had to contend, and not long 
afterwards a man of very different temperament and 
widely different theories of government came to 
assume the reins. 



XXXIV, 

STRAFFORD. 

In 1632, Wentworth — better known as Strafford — 
arrived in Ireland, prepared to carry out his motto of 
" Thorough." Only three years before, he had been 
one of the foremost orators in the struggle for the 
Petition of Right. The dagger of P'enton had turned 
him from an impassioned patriot and constitu- 
tionalist into a vehement upholder of absolutism. 
His revolt had been little more than a mask for his 
hostility to the hated favourite Buckingham, and 
when Buckingham's murder cleared the path to his 
ambition, Wentworth passed, apparently without a^ 
struggle, from the zealous champion of liberty to the 
yet more zealous champion of despotic rule. 

He arrived in Ireland as to a conquered country, 
and proceeded promptly to act upon that under- 
standing. His chief aim was to show that a parlia- 
ment, properly managed, could be made ndt a 
menace, but a tool in the hand of the king. With 
this end he summoned an Irish one immediately 
upon his arrival, and so managed the elections that 
Protestants and Catholics should nearly equally 
balance one another. Upon its assembling, he ordered 




THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, 164I. 



234 STRAFFORD. 

peremptorily that a subsidy of ;^ 100,000, to cover the 
debts to the Crown, should be voted. There would, 
he announced, be a second session, during which 
certain long-deferred " graces " and other demands 
would be considered. The sum was obediently voted, 
but the second session never came. The parliament 
was abruptly dissolved by the deputy, and did not 
meet again for nearly four years. 

The Connaught landlords were the next whom he 
took in hand. We have seen in the last chapter that 
they had recently paid a large sum to the Crown, in 
order to ward off the dangers of a plantation. This 
did not satisfy Wentworth. Their titles were again 
called into question. He swept down in person into 
the province, with the commissioners of plantations 
at his heels ; discovered, to his own complete satisfac- 
tion, that a/l the titles of all the five western counties 
were defective, and that, as a natural consequence, all 
lapsed to the Crown. The juries of Mayo, Sligo, 
and Roscommon were overawed into submission, but 
the Galway jury were obstinate, and refused to dis- 
possess the proprietors. Wentworth thereupon took 
them back with him to Dublin, summoned them 
before the Court of the Castle Chamber, where they 
were sentenced to pay a fine of ^4,000 each, and the 
sheriff iJ" 1 000, and to remain in prison until they had 
done so. The unfortunate sheriff died in prison. 
Lord Clanricarde, the principal Galway landlord, died 
also shortly afterwards, of anxiety and mortification. 
The others submitted, and were let off by the trium- 
phant deputy with the surrender, in some cases, of 
large portions of their estates, in others of heavy fines. 



Ills IRON RULE. 235 

By these means, and others too long to enter into 
here, he contrived to raise the annual Irish revenue to 
a surplus of i5^6o,ooo, with part of which he proceeded 
to set on foot and equip an army for the king of 
10,000 foot and 1,000 horse, ready to be marched 
at a moment's notice. This part of the programme 
was intended as a menace less against Ireland than 
England. Charles was to be absolute in both islands, 
and, to be so, his Irish subjects were to help him to 
coerce his English ones. 

Let us, however, be just. Strafford was a born 
tyrant — worse, he was the champion of an absolutism 
of the most odious type conceivable, one which, if 
successful, would have been a death-blow to English 
liberty. But he was also a born ruler. No petty 
tyrants flourished under his sway. His hand was 
like iron upon the plunderers, the pluralists, the 
fraudulent officials, gorged with their ill-gotten booty 
What he did, too, he did well. If he struck, he could 
also protect. He ruthlessly suppressed the infant 
woollen trade, believing that it might in time come 
to be a rival to the English one, but he was the 
founder of the linen trade, and imported Flemish 
weavers to teach it, and the best flax-seed to 
sow in the fields. He cleared the sea of the pirates 
who swarmed along the coasts, and had recently 
burnt the houses and carried off the inhabitants of 
several villages. The king's authority once secured 
he was anxious to secure to the mass of the people, 
Catholic as well as Protestant, a just and impartial 
administration of the law. No one in Ireland, he 
was resolved, should tyrannize except himself 




.JACOBUS USSERIUS;,^ARCHIEPISCOPUS ARMA.CHANUS , 
^ TOTIUS HIBERNlit PRIMAS 

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JtU iy George- £<.<lger w J^ Dunjia-ts CI<'^ckjarJ. mjhctftncc W yUarfSallJeu^jit' 



HIS TREATMENT OF THE IRISH CLERGY. 237 

He and Laud, the primate, were close allies, and 
both were bent upon bringing the Church of Ireland 
to an absolute uniformity with that of England, and, 
with this object, Went worth set a Court of High Com- 
mission to work to root out the Presbyterian ministers 
and to suppress, as far as possible, dissent. The Irish 
bishops and episcopalian clergy were, with hardly an 
exception. Low Churchmen, with a leaning to Calvin- 
ism, and, upon these also his hand was heavy. His 
regard for the Church by no means stood in his way 
either in his dealings with individual churchmen. 
He treated the Primate Ussher — one of the most vene- 
rated names in all Irish history — with marked con- 
tempt ; he rated the Bishop of Killaloe upon one 
occasion like a dog, and told him that " he deserved 
to have his rochet pulled over his ears ; " boasting 
afterwards, to his correspondent, of how effectually he 
had "warmed his old sides." 

In another letter to Laud, we get a graphic and 
rather entertaining account of his dealings with Con- 
vocation. The Lower House, it seems, had appointed 
a select committee, which had drawn up a book of 
canons upon the lines of what were known as the 
"Nine Articles of Lambeth." Went worth was furious. 
" Instantly," he says, " I sent for Dean Andrews, that 
reverend clerk, who sat, forsooth, in the chair at this 
committee, and required him to bring along the 
aforesaid book of canons ; this he obeyed, . . . but 
when I came to open the book, I confess I was not 
so much moved since I came into Ireland. I told 
him certainly not a Dean of Limerick, but an Ana- 
nias had sat in the chair at that committee, and sure 



23S STRAFFORD. 

I was that Ananias had been there in spirit if not in 
body." I 

The unhappy Ananias naturally submitted at once 
to the terrible deputy, and, although Archbishop 
Ussher and most of the bishops defended the attacked 
canons, Wentworth carried his point by a sheer exercise 
of power. Throwing the list of canons already drawn 
out aside, he drew up another of his own composi- 
tion, and forced the Convocation to accept it. " There 
were some hot spirits, sons of thunder, amongst them," 
he tells Laud boastfully, " who moved that they 
should petition me for a free synod, but, in fine, they 
could not agree among themselves who should put 
the bell about the cat's neck, and so this likewise 
vanished." ^ The cat, in truth, was a terrible one to 
bell! 

But the career of the master of Ireland was nearing 
its end. By the beginning of 1640 the Scotch were 
up in arms, and about to descend in force upon 
England. The English Puritans, too, were assuming 
a hostile attitude. Civil war was upon the point of 
breaking out. Charles summoned Wentworth over 
in hot haste from Ireland, and it was decided between 
them that the newly-organized Irish forces were to 
be promptly employed against the Scotch rebels. 
With this purpose Wentworth — now with the long- 
desired titles of Earl of Strafford and Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland— hurried back to make the final 
arrangements. Fresh subsidies were obtained from 
the ever-subservient Irish parliament ; more recruits 

^ Earl of Strafford's " Letters and Despatches," vol. i. p. 342. 
= Ibid. 



HIS EXECUTION. 



239 



were hastily summoned, and came in readily; the 
army was put under the command of the young 
Earl of Ormond, and Strafford once more returned 
to England. He did so only to find all his calcula- 
tions upset. A treaty had been made in his absence 
with the Scots ; the Long Parliament had assembled, 
and the fast-gathering storm was about to break in 
thunder over his own head. He was impeached. 
Witness after witness poured over from Ireland, all 
eager to give their evidence. Representatives even 
of the much-aggrieved Connaught landlords — though 
their wrongs did not perhaps count for much in the 
great total — were there to swell the tide. He was 
tried for high treason, condemned and executed. In 
England the collapse of so great and so menacing 
a figure was a momentous event. In Ireland it 
must have seemed as the very fall of Lucifer himself! 




''^ n lira 

SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL. 




11 



XXXV. 



'FORTY-ONE. 



Strafford's fall and death would alone have 
rendered this year, 164 1, a memorable one in Irish 
history. Unhappily it was destined to be made yet 
more so ; few years, indeed, in that long, dark bead- 
roll are perhaps as memorable, both from what it 
brought forth at the time, and, still more, from what 
was afterwards to follow from it. 

The whole country, it must be remembered, was 
in a state of the wildest and most irrepressible 
excitement. The fall of such a ruler as Strafford — 
one under whose iron will it had for years lain as 
in a vice — would alone have produced a consider- 
able amount of upheaval and confusion. The army 
collected by him, and mainly recruited by Catholics, 
was regarded with strong disfavour both by Irish Pro- 
testants and by the English Parliament, and Charles, 
much against his will, had been forced to disband it, 
and the arms had been stored in Dublin Castle. The 
men, however, remained, and among the leading 
Irish as well as English royalists there was a strong 
desire that they should be kept together, so as to 
serve if required in the fast nearing struggle. 



THE CATHOLIC RISING. 24I 

. Nor was this all. Strafford's persecution of the 
Presbyterians had done its work, and the feeling 
between them and the Irish Church party had been 
greatly embittered. Amongst the Catholics, too, the 
most loyal even of the gentry had been terror-stricken 
by his confiscations. No one knew how long his 
property would remain his own, or upon what pre- 
tence it might not next be taken from him. Add to 
these the long-gathering passion of the dispossessed 
clans in the north, and that floating element of dis- 
affection always ready to stir, and it will be seen 
that the materials for a rebellion were ready laid, 
and needed only a spark to ignite them. 

As usually happens in rebellions the plans of the 
more prudent were thwarted by the impetuosity of the 
more violent spirits. While Ormond, Antrim, and 
the barons of the Pale were communicating with the 
king, and considering what were the best steps to 
take, a plot had been formed without them, and was 
now upon the point of exploding. 

Two men, Rory or Roger O'Moore, one of the 
O'Moores of Leix, and Sir Phelim O'Neill, a con- 
nection of the Tyrones, were its main movers, and 
were joined by Lord Maguire, a youth of about 
twenty-two, Hugh McMahon, the Bishop of Clogher, 
and a few other gentlemen, belonging chiefly to the 
septs of the north. The plan was a very comprehen- 
sive one. They were to seize Dublin Castle, which 
was known to be weakly defended ; get out the arms 
and powder, and redistribute them to the disbanded 
troops ; at the same time, seize all the forts and gar- 
rison towns in the north ; turn all the Protestant 



242 'FORTY-ONE. 

settlers adrift — though it was at first stipulated with- 
out killing or otherwise injuring them- — take possession 
of all the country houses, and make all who declined 
to join in the rising prisoners. 

Never, too, was plot more nearly successful. October 
the 23rd was the day fixed, and up to the very evening 
before no hint of what was intended had reached the 
Lords Justices. By the merest chance, and by an almost 
inconceivable piece of carelessness on the part of the 
conspirators, it was divulged to a man called Conolly, 
a Presbyterian convert, who went straight and reported 
it to Sir William Parsons. The latter at first declined to 
believe in it, but, Conolly persisting in his story, steps 
were taken to strengthen the defences. The guard 
was doubled ; Lord Maguire and Hugh McMahon 
were arrested at daybreak next morning ; the rest, 
finding that their stroke had missed, fled with their 
followers. 

If this part of the rising failed, the other portions, 
unhappily, were only too successful. The same day 
the Protestant settlers in Armagh and Tyrone, un- 
suspicious of any danger, were suddenly set upon by 
a horde of armed or half-armed men, dragged out 
of their houses, stripped to the skin, and driven, 
naked and defenceless, into the cold. No one dared 
to take them in, every door was shut in their faces, 
and though at first no actual massacre seems to have 
been intended, hundreds perished within the first 
few days of exposure, or fell dead by the roadside 
of famine and exhaustion. 

Sir Phelim O'Neill — a drunken ruffian for whom 
even the most p'atriotic historian finds it hard to say 



SIR PHELIM ON BILL. 243 

• a redeeming word — was here the ringleader. On the 
same day — the 23rd of October — he got possession 
of the fort of Charlemont, the strongest position in 
the new plantation, by inviting himself to dinner 
with Lord Caulfield, the governor, and suddenly 
seizing him prisoner. Dungannon, Mountjoy, and 
several of the other forts, were also surprised and taken. 
Enniskillen, however, was saved by its governor, Sir 
William Cole, and Derry, Coleraine, and Carrick- 
fergus, had also time fortunately to shut their gates, 
and into these as many of the terrified settlers as 
could reach them crowded. 

These were few, however, compared to those who 
could find no such haven of refuge. Sir Phelim 
O'Neill, mad with excitement, and intoxicated with 
the sudden sense of power, hounded on his excited 
and undisciplined followers to commit every conceiv- 
able act of cruelty and atrocity. Disappointed by the 
failure of the more important part of the rising, and 
furious at the unsuccess of his attempts to capture 
the defended towns, he turned like a bloodhound 
upon those unfortunates who were within his grasp. 
Old Lord Caulfield was murdered in Sir Pheiim's 
house by Sir Pheiim's own foster-brother ; Mr. Blaney, 
the member for Monaghan, was hanged ; and some 
hundreds of the inhabitants of Armagh, who had 
surrendered on promise of their lives, were massacred 
in cold blood. As for the more irregular murders 
committed in the open field upon helpless, terrified 
creatures, powerless to defend themselves, they are too 
numerous to relate, and there is happily no purpose to 
be gained in repeating the harrowing details. The 



244 FORTY-ONE. 

effect produced by the condition of the survivors 
upon those who saw them arrive in DubHn and else- 
where — spent, worn out, frozen with cold, creeping 
along on hands and knees, and all but at the point 
of death — was evidently ineffaceable, and communi- 
'cates itself vividly to us as we read their descriptions. 

The effect of cruelty, too, is to produce more 
cruelty ; of horrors like these to breed more horrors ; 
till the very earth seems covered with the hideous 
brood, and the most elementary instincts of humanity 
die away under their poisonous breath. So it was 
now in Ireland. The atrocities committed upon one 
side were almost equalled, though not upon so large 
a scale by the other. One of the first actions per- 
formed by a Scotch force, sent over to Carrickfergus 
by the king, was to sally out like demons and merci- 
lessly slaughter some thirty Irish families living in 
Island Magee, who had nothing whatever to say to the 
rising. In Wicklow, too, Sir Charles Coote, sent to 
suppress a disturbance amongst the O'Byrnes and 
O'Tooles, perpetrated atrocities the memory of which 
still survives in the region, and which, for cold- 
blooded, deliberate horror almost surpass those com- 
mitted in the north. The spearing by his soldiery 
of infants which had hardly left the breast he himself 
openly avowed, and excused upon the plea that if 
allowed to survive they would grow up to be men 
and women, and that his object was to extirpate the 
entire brood. 

Here and there a faint gleam falls upon the 
blackened page. Bedell, the Bishop of Kilmore, 
who had won the reverence even of his fiercest op- 



CARNAGE AND OUTRAGE. 245 

ponents, was allowed to remain free and undisturbed 
in the midst of the worst scenes of carnage and 
outrage ; and when a few months later he died, 
was followed weeping to the grave by many who had 
been foremost in the work of horror. As to the 
number of those who actually perished, either from 
exposure, or by the hands of assassins, it has been 
so variously estimated that it seems to be all but 
impossible to arrive at anything like exact statistics. 
The tale was black enough as it really stood, but 
it was made blacker still by rumour and exaggeration. 
The real number of the victims grew to tenfold in 
the telling. Four thousand murdered swelled to forty 
thousand ; and eight thousand who died of exposure, 
to eighty thousand. Even now every fresh historian 
sets the sum total down at a different figure. Take 
it, however, at the very lowest, it is still a horrible one. 
Let us shut our eyes and pass on. The history of 
those days remains in Carlyle's words, " Not a picture, 
but a huge blot : an indiscriminate blackness, one 
which the human memory cannot willingly charge 
itself with ! " 





XXXVI. 

THE WATERS SPREAD. 

So far the rising had been merely local. It was 
now to assume larger dimensions. Although shocked 
at the massacre, and professing an eager desire to 
march in person to punish its perpetrators, Charles' 
chief aim was really that terms should be made with 
the leaders, in order that their troops might be made 
available for service in England. 

In Dublin courts-martial were being rapidly estab- 
lished. All Protestants were given arms ; all strangers 
were ordered to quit the city on pain of death ; Sir 
Francis Willoughby was given the command of the 
castle ; Sir Charles Coote made military governor 
of the city. Ormond was anxious to take the field 
in the north before the insurrection spread further, 
before they had time, as he said, to " file their pikes." 
This the Lords Justices however refused to allow. They 
were waiting for orders from the English Parliament, 
with which they were in close alliance, and were per- 
fectly willing to let the revolt spread so that the area 
of confiscated lands might be the greater. 

None of the three southern provinces had as yet risen. 



THE GENERAL UPRISING. 247 

in the Pale the Anglo-Norman families were warm 
in their expressions of loyalty, and appealed earnestly 
to the Lords Justices to summon a parliament, and 
to distribute arms for their protection. This last 
was refused, and although a parliament assembled it 
was instantly prorogued, and no measures were taken 
to provide for the safety of the well-disposed. Early 
in December of the same year Lords Fingal, Gormans- 
town, Dunsany, and others of the principal Pale peers, 
with a large number of the local gentry, met upon 
horseback, at Swords, in Meath, to discuss their future 
conduct. The opposition between the king and Par- 
liament was daily growing fiercer. The Lords Justices 
were the nominees of Parliament ; to revolt against 
them was not, therefore, it was argued, to revolt against 
the king. Upon December 17th they met again in 
yet larger numbers, upon the hill of Crofty, where 
they were met by some of the leaders of the north. 
Rory O'Moore, — a man of no little address, who 
was personally clear of the worst stain of the 
massacres, and who had lately issued a proclamation 
declaring that he and his followers were in arms, not 
against Charles, but the Parliament — was the principal 
speaker on this occasion, and his arguments appear to 
have decided the waverers. They agreed unanimously 
to throw in their lot with their co-religionists. From 
that moment the rising had become a national one. 
The whole island was soon in arms. Munster followed 
Leinster, and Connaught shortly afterwards followed 
Munster. Lords Thomond, Clanricarde, and a few 
others stood out, but by the end of the year, with the 
exception of Dublin, Drogheda, Cork, Galway, Ennis- 



248 THE WATERS SPREAD. 

killen, Derry, and some few other towns, all Ireland 
was in the hands of the rebels. 

Even then the Lords Justices seem to have but little 
realized the gravity of the crisis. They occupied their 
time chiefly in preparing indictments, and cheerfully 
calculating the fast-growing area of land open to con- 
fiscation. In vain Ormond entreated to be allowed to 
proceed against Sir Phelim O'Neill. They steadily 
declined to allow him to leave the neighbourhood of 
Dublin. 

The northern rising had by this time nearly worn 
itself out by its own excesses. Sir Phelim's efforts 
to take Drogheda were ludicrously unavailing, and he 
had been forced to take his ragged rabble away 
without achieving anything. Regarded as an army 
it had one striking peculiarity — there was not a 
single military man in it ! Sir Phelim himself had 
been bred to the law ; Rory O'Moore was a self-taught 
insurgent who had never smelt powder. They had 
no arms, no officers, no discipline, no organization of 
any kind ; what was more, the men were deserting in 
all directions. In the south there was no one either 
to take the command. The new levies were' willing 
enough to fight, but there was no one to show them 
how. The insurrection seemed in a fair way of dying 
out from sheer want of leadership. 

Suddenly reinforcements arrived in two directions 
almost at the same time. Owen O'Neill — better 
known as Owen Roe — an honourable and gallant 
man, who had served with much distinction upon the 
Continent, landed in Donegal, accompanied by about 
a hundred French-Irish officers. He instantly took 



THE CATHOLIC CONFEDERACY. 249 

the command of the disorganized and fast-dissolving 
northern levies ; superseded the incompetent Sir 
Phelim, who from that moment fell away into con- 
tempt and impotence ; suppressed all disorders, and 
punished, as far as possible, those who had been fore- 
most in the work of blood, expressing at the same 
time his utter detestation of the horrors which had 
hitherto blackened the rising. 

Almost at the same moment Colonel Preston, a 
brother of Lord Gormanstown, and an officer who 
had also served with credit in the European wars, 
landed in the south, bringing with him a store of 
ammunition and field artillery, and between four and 
five hundred exiled Irish officers. The two forces 
thereupon began to assume a comparatively organized 
appearance. Both, however, were so far perfectly inde- 
pendent of each other, and both openly and avowedly 
hostile to the king. 

To effect a union between these northern and south- 
ern insurgents a meeting was summoned at Kilkenny 
in October, 1642, consisting of over two hundred 
Roman Catholic deputies, nearly all the Irish Roman 
Catholic bishops, many of the clergy, and some four- 
teen peers. A council was formed of which Lord 
Mountgarret was appointed President Owen Roe 
O'Neill was at the same time confirmed in the com- 
mand of the northern forces, and Colonel Preston in 
that of the southern. The war was declared to be a 
Catholic one, to be known henceforward as the 
Catholic Confederacy, and between old Irish and 
Anglo-Irish there was to be no difference, 

Charles's great aim was now to persuade the Con- 



250 THE WATERS SPREAD. 

♦ 

federates to unite with one another in his support. 
The chief difficulty was a rehgious one. The Kilkenny 
Council stood out for the restoration of the Catholic 
Church in all its original privileges. This, for his own 
sake — especially in the then excited state of feeling in 
England — Charles dared not grant, neither would 
Ormond abet him in doing so. Between the latter 
and the Catholic peers there was, however, a com- 
plete understanding, while between him and the 
Dublin Lords Justices there was an all but complete 
breach. 

The King decided u^ondiCOKpde main. He dismissed 
the Lords Justices, and ordered sev^eral of the more 
Puritan members of the Privy Council to be tried for 
treason. The result was a rapid exodus of nearly the 
whole governing body to England. Early in 1644 
Ormond was made Lord-deputy, and a truce of a 
year was entered into with the Confederates. Only 
the extravagance of the Litter's demands now stood 
in the way of a complete union. 





XXXVII. 

CIVIL WAR. 

The passionate excitement which the news of 
the Ulster massacre had awakened in England 
seems to have deepened, rather than diminished, 
as time went on, and the details became more 
known. Nothing that has happened within living 
memory can be even approximately compared to it, 
though, perhaps, those who are old enough to 
remember the sensations awakened by the news of 
the Indian Mutiny will be able most nearly to realize 
the wrath and passionate desire of revenge which filled 
every Protestant breast. That the circumstances of 
the case were not taken into consideration w^as almost 
inevitable. Looking back with calmer vision — though 
even now a good deal of fog and misconception seems 
to prevail upon the subject — we can see that some such 
outbreak was all but inevitable ; might have been, 
indeed ought to have been, foreseen. A wildly- 
excitable population driven from the land which they 
and their fathers had held from time immemorial, 
confined to a narrow and, for the most part, a worth- 
less tract ; seeing others in possession of these " fat 
lands " which they still regarded as their own — exiled 



252 CIVTL WAR. 

to make room for planters of another race and 
another faith — what, in the name of sense or reason, 
was to be expected except what happened ? That 
the very instant protection was withdrawn the hour for 
retribution would be felt to have struck. The un- 
happy Protestant colonists were absolutely guiltless 
in the matter. They were simply the victims, as the 
earlier proprietors had been the victims before them. 
The wrongs that had been wrought thirty years 
earlier by Sir John Davis and the Dublin lawyers had 
been wiped out in their unoffending blood. 

This point is so important to realize, and the whole 
rising has so often been described as a purely religious 
and fanatical one, that it is worth dwelling upon it a 
minute or two longer. It was a rising, unquestionably, 
of a native Roman Catholic community against an 
introduced Protestant one, and the religious element? 
no doubt, counted for something — though it is not 
easy to say for how much — in the matter. In any 
case it was the smallest least vital part of the long 
gathered fury which resulted in that deed of ven- 
geance. The rising was essentially an agrarian one — 
as almost every Irish rising has been before and 
since — and the fact that the two rival creeds found 
themselves face to face was little more than a very 
unfortunate accident. Could the plantations of 
James the First's time have been formed exclu- 
sively of English or Scotch Roman Catholics, we 
have no reason, and certainly no right to conclude 
that the event would have been in any way different, 
or that the number of those slaughtered would have 
been reduced by even a single victim. 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE CONFEDERATES. 253 

It was not, however, to be expected that the 
Enghsh Protestants of that day would realize this. 
It is not always fully realized even yet. The heat 
awakened by that ruthless slaughter, that merciless 
driving away of hundreds of innocent women and chil- 
dren, the natural pity for the youth and helplessness of 
many of the victims has lasted down to our own time. 
Even to us the outrage is a thousand-fold more vivid 
than the provocation which led to it. How much 
more then to the English Protestants of that day,? 
To them it was simply a new massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew ; an atrocity which the very amplest and bloodiest 
vengeance would still come far short of expiating. 

It is easy to see that any negotiation with those 
implicated in a deed which had produced so widespread 
a feeling of horror was a proceeding fraught with peril 
to the royal cause. Anger does not discriminate, and 
to the Protestants of England, North and South, old 
Irish, and Anglo-Irish, honourable gentlemen of the 
Pale, and red-handed rebels of Ulster, were all alike 
guilty. Nor was this Charles's only difficulty. The 
Confederates declined to abate a jot of their terms. 
The free exercise of the Catholic religion, an in- 
dependent Irish parliament, a general pardon, and 
a reversal of all attainders were amongst their con- 
ditions, and they would not take less. These Ormond 
dared not agree to. Had he done so every Protestant 
in Ireland, down to his own soldiery, would have gone 
over in a body to the Parliament. He offered what 
he dared, but the Irish leaders would listen to no com- 
promise. They knew the imminence of the situation 
as well as he did, and every fresh royal defeat, the 



254 CIVIL WAR. 

news of which reached Ireland, only made them stand 
out the firmer. 

Charles cut the knot in his own fashion. Tired of 
Ormond's discretion and Ormond's inconvenient 
sense of honour, he secretly sent over Edward 
'Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, to make terms with 
the Confederates, who, excited at finding themselves 
the last hope and mainstay of an embarrassed king 
stood out for higher and higher conditions. The Plan- 
tation lands were to be given back : full and free 
pardon was to be granted to all ; Mass was to be 
said in all the churches. To these terms and every- 
thing else required, Glamorgan agreed, and the Con- 
federates, thereupon, agreed to despatch a large force, 
when called upon to do so, to England, and in the 
meantime to make sham terms with Ormond, keeping 
him in the dark as to this secret compact. 

It was not long a secret. Ormond seems to have 
had some suspicions of it from the beginning, and an 
incident which presently occurred made suspicion cer- 
tainty. The town of Sligo had been captured by the 
parliamentary troops under Coote,and in October, 1645, 
an attempt was made to recapture it by a party of Irish 
under a fighting prelate, the Roman Catholic Arch- 
bishop of Tuam. In the struggle which ensued the 
Archbishop was killed, and upon his body was found 
a copy of the secret treaty which was straightway 
despatched by Coote to London. 

It awakened a sensation hardly less than that with 
which the news of the massacre itself had been re- 
ceived. It was the one thing still wanting to damage 
the royal cause. Charles, it is true, denied it stoutly, 



DEFEAT OF THE PROTESTANTS. 255 

and the English royaUsts tried to accept the denial. 
The Irish ones knew better. Ormond, whose own 
honour was untouched, did what he could to save his 
king's. The Confederates, however, admitted it openly, 
and Glamorgan, after suffering a short and purely 
fictitious imprisonment, remained in Ireland to carry 
out his master's orders. 

The already crowded confusion of the scene 
there had lately been added to by a new actor. 
Rinucini, Archbishop of Fermo, had been despatched 
by Pope Innocent X. as his nuncio, and at once 
threw himself into the struggle. To him it narrowed 
itself to one point. The moment, he felt, had now 
come for the re-establishment of the Catholic religion 
in Ireland, and if possible for its union with one of 
the Catholic Powers of Europe, and in order to 
achieve this object, his great aim was to hinder, if 
possible, anything like a reconciliation between the 
Catholic insurgents and the king. 

Meanwhile, peace had been made in England. 
Charles was a prisoner, and the final acts of that 
drama in which he plays so strangely mixed a part 
were shortly to be enacted. In Ireland there was no 
pretence at peace. On the contrary, it was only then 
that hostilities seem really to have been carried on 
with vigour. At a battle fought upon June 4, 1646, 
near Benturb, Owen O'Neill had defeated Munroe and 
his Scottish forces with great slaughter, and from that 
moment the whole north was in his power. In the 
south Rinucini was rushing from town to town and 
pulpit to pulpit, fiercely arousing all the Catholic 
animosity of the country against both English parties 
alike. In this he was supported by Owen O'Neill, 



256 CIVIL WAR. 

who, with his victorious army, hastened south to meet 
him. Together the chi-ef and the legate marched 
in September of the same year into Kilkenny ; took 
possession of the Council Chamber ; flung the Mode- 
rates assembled there, including old Lord Mountgarret 
and the rest of the Council, into prison. Ormond 
was in Dublin, helpless to meet this new combination. 
No orders came from England. The royal cause 
seemed to be hopelessly lost. All Ireland was swarm- 
ing with the troops of the insurgents. Lord Inchiquin, 
who had for a while declared for the king, had now 
gone over to the Parliament. O'Neill and the legate's 
army was daily gathering strength. It needed but 
a little more energy on their part and Dublin itself, 
with all its helpless crowd of fugitives, must fall into 
their hands. 

In this dilemma Ormond came to a resolution. 
To throw in his lot with Rinucini and the rebels of 
the north, stained as the latter were in his eyes with 
innocent blood, was impossible. Even had they been 
disposed to combine heartily with him for the royal 
cause he could hardly have done so ; as it was there 
was barely a pretence of any such intention. If 
Charles could effect his escape and would put himself 
in their hands, then, indeed, they said they would 
support him. In that case, however, it would" have 
been as king of Ireland rather than England. Or- 
mond could not and would not stoop to any such 
negotiations. He wrote to the English Parliament 
offering to surrender Dublin into their hands, and to 
leave the country. The offer was accepted, and a 
month later he had relinquished the impossible post, 
and joined the other escaped Royalists in France. 



XXXVIII. 

THE CONFUSION DEEPENS. 

The indescribable confusion of aims and parties in 
Ireland begins at this point to take even more rapid 
and perplexing turns. That " poor panther Inchi- 
quin," as one of his opponents derisively calls him, 
who had already made one bound from king to Par- 
liament, now, upon some fresh offence, bounded back 
again, and made overtures to Preston and the Mode- 
rates. Rinucini, whose only policy was to hinder any 
union between the Catholics and Royalists, thereupon 
fled to O'Neill, and together they opposed the Mode- 
rates tooth and nail. The latter were now seriously 
anxious to make terms with the Royalists. The king's 
trial was beginning, and his peril served to consoli- 
date all but the most extreme. Ormond himself 
returned late in 1648 from France ; Prince Rupert 
arrived early the following year with a small fleet of 
ships off Kinsale, and every day brought crowds of 
loyal gentlemen to Ireland as to a final vantage 
ground upon which to try a last desperate throw for 
the royal cause. 

In Dublin the command, upon Ormond's surrender, 
had been given by the Parliament to Colonel Michael 



258 THE CONFUSION DEEPENS. 

Jones, a Puritan officer, who had greatly distinguished 
himself in the late war. The almost ludicrously in- 
volved state into which things had got is seen by the 
fact that Jones, though himself the leader of the 
Parliamentary forces, struck up at this juncture a tem- 
porary alliance with O'Neill, and instructed Monk 
who was in the north, to support him. The king's 
death brought all the Royalists, and most of the more 
moderate rebels into line at last. Rinucini, feeling 
that whatever happened, his project of a separate Ire- 
land had become impossible, fled to Italy. Even 
O'Neill, finding that his alliance with Jones was not 
prospering, and that the stricter Puritans declined 
with horror the bare idea of holding any communica- 
tion with him or his forces, gave in his adhesion. 
Old Irish and Anglo-Irish, Protestant and Catholic, 
North and South, all at last were in arms for the king. 
The struggle had thus narrowed itself It was 
now practically between Dublin, commanded by 
Jones, the Parliamentary general, upon one side, and 
all Ireland under Ormond and the now united Con- 
federates on the other. Cromwell, it was known, was 
preparing for a descent upon Ireland, and had issued 
liberal offers of the forfeited Irish lands to all who 
would aid him in the enterprise. He had first, how- 
ever, to land, and there was nowhere that he could do 
so excepting at Dublin or Londonderry. All the 
efforts therefore of the Royalists were concentrated 
upon taking the capital before it became the starting- 
point of a new campaign. Marching hastily from 
Kilkenny, Ormond established himself at a place 
called Baggotrath, near Rathmines, and close to the 




JAMES, DUKE OF ORMOND. 

{From aft engraving by White, after a picture by Kneller. 



26o THE CONFUSION DEEPENS. 

walls of the town. Two nights after his arrival he sent 
forward a body of men under Colonel Purcell to try 
and effect a surprise. Jones, however, was on the 
alert ; drove Purcell back, and, following him with 
all the men at his command, fell upon Ormond's 
camp, where no proper watch was being kept. The 
surprise was thus completely reversed. Six thousand 
of the confederate troops were killed or forced to 
surrender, and Ormond, with the remainder, had to 
fall back upon Kilkenny. 

The battle of Baggotrath does not figure amongst 
the more famous battles of this period, but it was cer- 
tainly the turning-point of the Irish campaign. With 
his crippled forces, Ormond was unable again to take 
the field, and Jones was therefore left in undisputed 
possession of Dublin. A week later, in August, 1649, 
Cromwell had landed there with 12,000 troops at his 
back. 




XXXIX. 



CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 



Cromwell had hardly set foot upon Irish soil 
before he took complete control of the situation. 
The enterprise, in his own eyes and in those of many 
who accompanied him, wore all the sacred hue of a 
crusade. " We are come," he announced, solemnly, 
upon his arrival in Dublin, "to ask an account of the 
innocent blood that hath been shed, and to endeavour 
to bring to an account all who, by appearing in arms, 
shall justify the same." 

Three thousand troops, the flower of the English 
cavaliers, with some of the Royalists of the Pale — 
none of whom, it may be said, had anything to say 
to the Ulster massacres— had been hastily thrown by 
Ormond into Drogheda, under Sir Arthur Ashton, a 
gallant Royalist officer; and to Drogheda, accordingly 
in September Cromwell marched. Summoned to 
yield, the garrison refused. They were attacked, and 
fought desperately, driving back their assailants at the 
first assault. At the second, a breach was made in 
the walls, and Ashton and his force were driven 
into the citadel. " Being thus entered," Cromwell's 
despatch to the Parliament runs, " we refused them 



262 CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 

quarter. I believe we put to the sword the whole 
number of the defendents. I do not think thirty- 
escaped. Those that did are in safe custody for the 
Barbadoes. ... I wish," he adds, a little later in the 
same despatch, " all honest hearts may give the glory 
of this to God alone." 

From Drogheda, the Lord-General turned south 
to Wexford. Here an equally energetic defence 
was followed by an equally successful assault, and 
this also by a similar drama of slaughter. " There 
was lost of the enemy," he himself writes, " not many 
less than two thousand ; and, I believe, not twenty 
of yours from first to last." The soldiers, he goes on 
to say, " got a very good booty in this place." Of 
" the former inhabitants . . . most of them are run 
away, and many of them killed in this service. It 
were to be wished that some honest people would 
come and plant here." ^ 

The grim candour of these despatches needs no 
comment. We see the whole situation with that 
vividness which only a relation at first hand ever gives. 
The effect of these two examples was instantaneous. 
Most of the other towns surrendered upon the first 
summons. The Irish army fell back in all direc- 
tions. An attempt was made to save Kilkenny, but 
after a week's defence it was surrendered. The same 
thing happened at Clonmel, and within a few months 
of his arrival nearly every strong place, except Water- 
ford and Limerick, were in the Lord-General's hands. 

That Cromwell, from his own point of view, was 
justified in these proceedings, and that he held him- 

' "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches" — Carlyle. 



ms DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND. 26^ 

self — even when slaughtering English Royalists in 
revenge for the acts of Irish rebels — a divinely-ap- 
pointed agent sent to execute justice upon the un- 
godly, there can be little doubt. As regards ordinary 
justice his conduct was exemplary. Unlike most 
of the armies that had from time to time ravaged 
Ireland, he allowed no disorder. His soldiers were 
forbidden by proclamation to plunder, and were 
hanged, " in ropes of authentic hemp," as Carlyle 
remark.s, when they did so. The merciless slaughter 
of two entire garrisons is a hideous deed, and a deed, 
too, which appeals with peculiar force to the popular 
imagination. As compared" to many acts perpetrated 
from time to time in Ireland, it seems, if one ex- 
amines it coolly, to fade into comparative whiteness, 
and may certainly be paralleled elsewhere. A far 
deeper and more ineffaceable stain rests — as will be 
seen in another chapter — upon Cromwell's rule in 
Ireland ; one, moreover, not so readily justified by 
custom or any grim necessities of warfare. 

The final steps by which the struggle was crushed 
out were comparatively tedious. Cromwell's men 
were attacked by that " country sickness " which 
seems at that time to have been inseparable from 
Irish campaigns. Writing from Ross in November, he 
says, " I scarce know one officer amongst us who has 
not been sick." His own presence, too, was urgently 
required in England, so that he was forced before long 
to set sail, leaving the completion of the campaign in 
the hands of others. 

In the Royalist camp, the state of affairs was mean- 
while absolutely desperate. The Munster colonists 



ii64 CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 

had gone over almost to a man to the enemy. The 
" panther Inchiquin " had taken another bound in 
the same direction. The quarrels between Ormond 
and the old Irish party had grown bitterer than 
ever. The hatred of the extreme Catholic party 
towards him appears to have been if anything rather 
deeper than their hatred to Cromwell, and all the 
recent disasters were charged by them to his want of 
generalship. The young king had been announced 
at one moment to be upon the point of arriving in 
person in Ireland. " One must go and die there, for 
it is shameful to live elsewhere ! " he is reported to 
have cried, with a depth of feeling very unlike his 
usual utterances. He got as far as Jersey, but there 
paused. Ireland under Cromwell's rule was not 
exactly a pleasant royal residence, and, on the whole, 
he appears to have thought it wiser to go no further. 

His signature, a year later, of the Covenant, in 
return for the Scotch allegiance, brought about a final 
collapse of the always thinly cemented pact in Ire- 
land. The old Catholic party thereupon broke wholly 
away from Ormond, and after a short struggle he 
was again driven into exile. From this time forward, 
there was no longer a royal party of any sort left in 
the country. 

Under Hugh O'Neill, a cousin of Owen Roe, who 
— fortunately, perhaps, for himself — had died shortly 
after Cromwell's arrival, the struggle was carried on 
for some time longer. As in later times. Limerick was 
one of the last places to yield. Despite the evident 
hopelessness of the struggle, Hugh O'Neill and his 
half-starved men held it with a courage which awoke 



Surrender of galway. 



265 



admiration even amongst the Cromwellians. When 
it was surrendered the Irish officers received per- 
mission to take service abroad. Galway, with a few 
other towns and castles, which still held out, now 
surrendered. The eight years' civil war was at last 
over, and nothing remained for the victors to do but 
to stamp out the last sparks, and call upon the sur- 
vivors to pay the forfeit. 




ST. COLUMBA S ORATORY, KELLS. 




XL. 

CROMWELL'S METHODS. 

The total loss of life during those weary eight 
years of war and anarchy has been estimated at no 
less than six hundred thousand lives, and there seems 
to be no reason to think that these figures are exag- 
gerated. Whereas in 1641 the population of Ireland 
was nearly one and a half millions, at the end of 1649 
it was considerably under one. More than a third, 
therefore, of the entire population had disappeared 
bodily. 

Nor were the survivors left in peace to bind up 
their wounds and mourn their slain. In England, 
once the fighting was over, and the swords sheathed, 
there was little desire to carry the punishment further ; 
and the vanquished were, for the most part, able to 
retire in more or less melancholy comfort to their 
homes. In Ireland the reverse was the case. There 
the struggle had been complicated by a bitterness 
unknown elsewhere, and had aroused a keen and 
determined thirst for vengeance, one which the ces- 
sation of hostilities only seemed to stimulate into 
greater vehemence. 

The effect, especially amongst the Puritans, of the 



HIS SCHEME OF EVICTION. 267 

Ulster massacres, far from dying out, had grown 
fiercer and bitterer with every year. Now that the 
struggle was over, that Ireland lay like an inert thing 
in the hands of her victors, her punishment, it was 
resolved, should begin. Had that punishment fallen 
only on the heads of those who could be proved to 
have had any complicity in that deed of blood there 
would not have been a word to say. Sir Phelim 
O'Neill was dragged from the obscurity to which ever 
since the coming of Owen Roe he had been consigned, 
tried in Dublin, and hanged — with little regret even 
from his own side. Lord Mayo, who had taken a 
prominent part in the rising, and was held responsible 
for a horrible massacre perpetrated at Shrule Bridge, 
near Tuam, was shot in Connaught. Lord Muskerry 
was tried, and honourably acquitted. Other trials 
took place, chiefly by court-martial, and though some 
of these appear to have been unduly pressed, on the 
whole, considering the state of feelings that had been 
awakened, it may be allowed that so far stern justice 
had not outstepped her province. 

It was very different with what was to follow. 
An enormous scheme of eviction had been planned 
by Cromwell which was to include all the native and 
nearly all the Anglo-Irish inhabitants of Ireland, 
with the exception of the humblest tillers of the soil, 
who were reserved as serfs or servants. This was a 
scheme of nothing less than the transportation of all 
the existing Catholic landowners of Ireland, who, at 
a certain date, were ordered to quit their homes, and 
depart in a body into Connaught, there to inhabit a 
narrow desolate tract, between the Shannon and the 



268 CROMWELL'S METHODS. 

sea, destitute, for the most part, of houses or any ac- 
commodation for their reception ; where they were 
to be debarred from entering any walled town, and 
where a cordon of soldiers was to be stationed to 
prevent their return. May i, 1654,. was the date fixed 
for this national exodus, and all who after that date 
were found east of the appointed line were to suffer 
the penalty of death. 

The dismay awakened when the magnitude of this 
scheme burst upon the unhappy country may easily 
be conceived. Delicate ladies, high-born men and 
women, little children, the old, the sick, the suffering 
— all were included in this common disaster ; all 
were to share alike in this vast and universal sentence 
of banishment. Resistance, too, was hopeless. Every- 
thing that could be done in the way of resistance had 
already been done, and the result was visible. The 
Irish Parliament had ceased to exist. A certain 
number of its Protestant members had been trans- 
ferred by Cromwell to the English one, — thus antici- 
pating the Union that was to come a century and 
a half later. The whole government of the country 
was at present centred in a board of commissioners, 
who sat in Dublin, and whose direct interest it was to 
hasten the exodus as much as possible. 

For the new owners, who were to supplant those 
about to be ejected, were ready and waiting to step 
into their places. The Cromwellian soldiers who 
had served in the war had all received promises of 
grants of land, and their pay, now several years 
due, was also to be paid to them in the same coin. 
The intention was, that they were to be marched 



MILITARY COLONIES. 269 

down regiment by regiment, and company by com- 
pany, to ground already chosen for them by lot, then 
and there disbanded, and put into possession. A vast 
Protestant military colony was thus to be established 
over the whole of the eastern provinces. In addition 
to these an immense number of English speculators 
had advanced money upon Irish lands, and were now 
eagerly waiting to receive their equivalent. 

As the day drew nearer, there arose all over 
Ireland a wild plea for time, for a little breathing 
time before being driven into exile. The first sum- 
mons had gone out in the autumn, and had been 
proclaimed by beat of drum and blast of trumpet all 
over the country, and as the 1st of May began to 
approach the plea grew more and more urgent. So 
evident was the need for delay that some, even 
among the Parliamentarians, were moved to pity, 
and urged that a little more time might be granted. 
The command to " root out the heathen " was felt 
to be imperative, but even the heathen might be 
allowed a little time to collect his goods, and to pro- 
vide some sort of a roof to shelter him in this new 
and forlorn home to which he was being sent. 

It happened, too, that some of the first batches 
of exiles were ordered into North Clare, to a district 
known as the Burren, whose peculiarity is that what 
little soil is to be found there has collected into rifts 
below the surface, or accumulated into pockets of 
earth at the feet of the hills, leaving the rest of the 
surface sheer rock, the very streams, whose edges 
would otherwise be green, being mostly carried under- 
ground. The general appearance of the region has 



270 CROMWELL'S METHODS. 

been vividly described by one of the commissioners 
engaged in carrying out this very act of transplan- 
tation, who, writing back to Dublin for further in- 
structions, informs his superiors that the region in 
question did not possess " water enough to drown a 
man, trees enough to hang a man, or earth enough to 
bury a man." It may be conceived what an effect 
such a region, so described, must have had upon men 
fresh from the fertile and flourishing pasture-lands of 
Meath and Kildare. Many turned resolutely back, 
preferring rather to die . than to attempt life under 
such new and hopeless conditions, and stern examples 
had to be made before the unwilling emigrants were 
at last fairly got underweigh. 

Yet even such exile as this w^as better than the lot 
of some. The wives and families of the Irish officers 
and soldiers who had been allowed to go into foreign 
service, had, of necessity, been left behind, and a con- 
siderable number of these, the Government now pro- 
ceeded to ship in batches to the West Indies to be sold 
as slaves. Several thousand women, ladies and others, 
were thus seized and sold by dealers, often without 
any individual warrant, and it was not until after the 
accidental seizure of some of the wives of the Crom- 
wellian soldiers that the traffic was put under regu- 
lations. Cromwell's greatness needs no defence, but 
the slaughter of the garrisons of Drogheda and 
Wexford, reckoned amongst the worst blemishes upon 
that greatness, pales beside such an act as this ; one 
which would show murkily even upon the blackened 
record of an Alva or a Pizarro. 

Slowly the long trains of exiles began now to 



FAILURE OF THE EVICTION SCHEME. 27 1 

pour out in all directions. Herds of cattle, horses 
laden with furniture, with food, with all the every- 
day necessities of such a multitude accompanied 
them. All across that wide limestone plain, which 
covers the centre of Ireland, innumerable family 
groups were to be seen slowly streaming west. There 
were few roads, and those few very bad. Hardly 
a wheeled conveyance of any sort existed in the 
country. Those who were too weak to walk or to ride 
had to be carried on men's backs or in horse litters. 
The confusion, the misery, the cold, the wretched- 
ness may be conceived, and always behind, urging 
them on, rebuking the loiterers, came the armed escort 
sent to drive them into exile — Puritan seraphs, with 
drawn swords, set to see that none returned whence 
they came ! 

Nor was there even any marked satisfaction amongst 
those who inherited the lands and houses thus left 
vacant. Many of the private soldiers who had re- 
ceived bonds or debentures for their share of the 
land, had parted with them long since, either to their 
own officers or to the trafficers in such bonds, v/ho 
had sprang up by hundreds, and who obtained them 
from the needy soldiers often for a mere trifle. Sharp- 
sighted speculators like Dr. Petty, by whom the 
well-known Survey of Ireland was made, acquired 
immense tracts of land at little or no outlay. Of 
those soldiers, too, who did receive grants of land 
many left after a while. Others, despite all regu- 
lations to the contrary, married Irish wives, and their 
children in the next generation were found to have 
not only become Roman Catholics, but to be actually 



272 



CROMWELL'S METHODS. 



unable to speak a word of English. Many, too, of the 
dispossessed proprietors, the younger ones especially, 
continued to hang about, and either harassed the new 
owners and stole their goods, or made friends with 
them, and managed after a while to slip back upon 
some excuse into their old homes. No sternness of the 
Puritan leaven availed to hinder the new settlers from 
being absorbed into the country, as other and earlier 
settlers had been absorbed before them ; marrying 
its daughters, adopting its ways, and becoming them- 
selves in time Irishmen. The bitter memory of that 
vast and wholesale act of eviction has remained, but 
the good which it was hoped would spring from it 
faded away almost within a generation. 





XLI. 



THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT. 



Cromwell was now dead, and after a very short 
attempt at government his son Richard had rehn- 
quished the reins and retired into private Hfe. Henry 
Cromwell, who had for several years been Lord- 
Lieutenant in Ireland, and had won no little liking by 
his mild and equable rule, also honourably resigned at 
the same time, and left. Coote, on the other hand, 
and Broghill, both of whom had acquired immense 
estates under the Cromwellian rule, were amongst 
the foremost to hail the Restoration, and to secure 
their own interests by being eager to welcome the 
king. Such secular vicars of Bray were not likely to 
suffer whatever king or government came uppermost. 

To the exiled proprietors, who had fought for that 
king's father and for himself, it naturally seemed that 
the time had come for their sufferings and exile to 
end. Now that the king had been restored to his 
own again, they who had been punished for his sake 
should also, they thought, in fairness, again enjoy 
what had been theirs before the war. 

Charles's position, it must be acknowledged, was a 
very difficult one. Late found as it was, the loyalty 




HENRY CROMWELL, LORD-LIEUTENANT FROM 1657 TO 1660. 

{From a Mezzotint.) 



THE COURT OF CLAIMS. 275 

of Coote, Broghill, and others of their stamp had 
been eminently convenient, as without it the army in 
Ireland would hardly have returned to its allegiance. 
To deprive them of what they had acquired was felt 
to be out of the question, and the same argument 
applied, with no little force, to many of the other 
newly-made proprietors. The feeling, too, against the 
Irish Catholics was far from having died out in Eng- 
land, and anything like a wholesale ejection of the 
new Protestant settlers for their benefit, would have 
been very badly received there. 

On the other hand, decency and the commonest 
<5ense of honour required that something should be 
done. Ormond, who had been made a duke, was at 
once reinstated in his own lands, with a handsome 
additional slice as a recompense for his services. A 
certain number of other great proprietors and lords of 
the Pale, a list of whom was rather capriciously made 
out, were also immediately reinstated. For the rest, 
more tardy and less satisfactory justice was to be 
meted. 

A Court of Claims was set up in Dublin to try the 
cases of those who claimed, during the late war, to 
have been upon the king's side. Those who could 
prove their entire innocence of the original rebellion 
were to be at once reinstated ; those, on the other 
hand, who were in arms before '49, or who had been 
at any time joined to the party of Rinucini, or had 
held any correspondence, even accidentally, with that 
party, were to be excluded, and if they had received 
lands in Connaught might stay there and be thankful. 

A wearisome period of endless dispute, chicanery, 



276 THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT. 

and wrangling followed this decision. As the soldiers 
and adventurers were only to be dispossessed in case, 
of a sufficiency of reserved lands being found to 
compensate them, it followed that the fewer of the 
original proprietors that could prove their loyalty 
the better for the Government. At the first sitting 
of the Court of Claims the vast majority of those 
whose cases were tried were able thus to prove their 
innocence ; and as all these had a claim to be rein- 
stated, great alarm was felt, and a clamour of indig- 
nation arose from the new proprietors, at which the 
Government, taking alarm, made short work of many 
of the remaining claims, whereupon a fresh, and cer- 
tainly not less reasonable, clamour was raised upon 
the other side. 

The end of the long-drawn struggle may be stated 
in a few words. The soldiers, adventures, and de- 
benture holders agreed at length to accept two-thirds 
of their land, and to give up the other third, and on 
this arrangement, by slow degrees, the country settled 
down. As a net result of the whole settlement we 
find that, whereas before '41 the Irish Roman 
Catholics had held two-thirds of the good land and 
all the waste, after the Restoration they held only 
one-third in all, and this, too, after more than two 
millions of acres previously forfeited had been re- 
stored to them. 



XLII. 

OPPRESSION AND COUNTER OPPRESSION. 

No class of the community suffered more severely 
from the effects of the Restoration than the Presby- 
terians of Ulster. The church party which had re- 
turned to Ireland upon the crest of the new wave 
signalized its return by a violent outburst of intolerance 
directed not so much against the Papists as the Non- 
conformists. Of the 300,000 Protestants, which was 
roughly speaking the number calculated to be at that 
time in Ireland, fully a third were Presbyterians, 
another 100,000 being made up of Puritans and other 
Nonconformists, leaving only one-third Churchmen. 
Against the two former, but especially against the 
Presbyterians, the terrors of the law were now put in 
force. A new Act of Uniformity was passed, and 
armed with this, the bishops with Bramhall, the 
Primate, at their head, insisted upon an acceptance 
of the Prayer-book being enforced upon all who were 
permitted to hold any benefice, or to teach or preach 
in any church or public place. 

The result was that the Presbyterians were driven 
away in crowds from Ireland. Out of seventy 
ministers in Ulster, only eight accepted the terms 



278 OPPRESSION AND COUNTER OPPRESSION. 

and were ordained ; all the remainder were expelled, 
and their flocks in many cases 'elected to follow them 
into exile. 

This persecution was the more monstrous that no 
■hint or pretext of disloyalty was urged against them. 
They had been planted in the country as a defence 
and breakwater against the Roman Catholics, and 
now the same intolerance which had, in a great 
measure forced the latter to rebel, was in its turn 
being brought to bear upon them. 

The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, now 
found themselves indulged to a degree that they had 
not experienced for nearly a century. The penal laws 
at the special instance of the king were suspended in 
their favour. Many of the priests returned, and were 
allowed to establish themselves in their old churches. 
They could not do so, however, without violent alarm 
being awakened upon the other side. The Irish 
Protestants remonstrated angrily, and their indigna- 
tion found a vehement echo in England. The '41 
massacre was still as fresh in every Protestant's mind 
as if it had happened only the year before, and sus- 
picion of Rome was a passion ready at any moment 
to rise to frenzy. 

The heir to the Crown was a Papist, and Charles 
was himself strongly, and not unreasonably suspected 
of being secretly one also. His alliance with Louis 
XIV. was justifiably regarded with the utmost 
suspicion and dislike by all his Protestant subjects. It 
only wanted a spark to set this mass of smouldering 
irritation and suspicion into a flame. 

That spark was afforded by the murder of Sir 



EXECUTION OF DR. PLUNKETT. 279 

Edmondbury Godfrey, under circumstances which 
were at first beHeved to point to its having been 
committed by Papists. A crowd of perjured wit- 
nesses, with Titus Oates at their head, sprang like 
evil birds of the night into existence, ready to swear 
away the lives of any number of innocent men. The 
panic flew across the Channel. Irish Roman Catholics 
of all classes and ages were arrested and flung into 
prison. Priests who had ventured to return were 
ordered to quit the country at once. Men of stainless 
honour, whose only crime was their faith, were on no 
provocation seized and subjected to the most ignomi- 
nious treatment, and in several instances put to death. 

The case of Dr. Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Arch- 
bishop of Armagh, a man whom even Protestants 
regarded with the utmost reverence, is the most noto- 
rious of these. Upon a ridiculous charge of being im- 
plicated in a wholly mythical French descent, he was 
dragged over to London, summarily sentenced, con- 
victed, and hung, drawn, and quartered. Allhough the 
most eminent, he was only one, however, of the 
victims of this most insane of panics. Reason seemed 
to have been utterly lost. Blood and blood alone 
could satisfy the popular craving, and victim after 
victim was hurried, innocent but unpitied, to his 
doom. 

At last the tide stayed. First slackened, then 
suddenly — in Ireland at least — reversed itself, and 
ran almost as recklessly and as violently as ever, 
only in the opposite direction. In 1685 Charles died, 
and James now king, resolved with hardly an 
attempt at further concealment to carry out his own 



28o OPPRESSION AND COUNTER OPPRESSION. 

long-cherished plans. From the beginning of his 
reign his private determination seems to have been 
to make Ireland a stronghold and refuge for his 
Roman Catholic subjects, in order that by their aid he 
might make himself independent both of England 
and the Parliament, and so carry out that despotism 
upon which his whole narrow, obstinate soul was in- 
flexibly set. 

His first step was to recall the Duke of Ormond, 
whom Charles had left as Viceroy, and to appoint in 
his place two Lords Justices, Lord Granard and the 
Primate Boyle, who were likely, he believed, to be 
more malleable. All tests were to be immediately 
done away with. Catholicism was no longer to be a 
disqualification for office, and Roman Catholics were 
to be appointed as judges. A more important change 
still, the army was to be entirely remodelled ; Pro- 
testant officers were to be summarily dismissed, and 
Roman Catholic ones as summarily put in their 
places. * 

Such sweeping changes could not, even James found, 
be carried out all at once. The Lords Justices were 
next dismissed, and his own brother-in-law. Lord 
Clarendon, sent over as Lord-Lieutenant. He in 
turn proving too timid, or too constitutional, his 
place was before long filled by Richard Talbot, a 
fervent Catholic, but a man of indifferent public 
honour and more than indifferent private character. 
Talbot was created Earl of Tyrconnel, and arrived in 
1686 avowedly to carry out the new policy. 

From this point the stream ran fast and strong. 
The recent innovations, especially the re-organization 



ALARM OF THE IRISH PROTESTANTS. 281 

'^ of the army, had naturally caused immense alarm 
amongst the whole Protestant colony. A petition 
drawn out by the former proprietors and forwarded to 
the king against the Act of Settlement had made them 
tremble also for their estates, and now this new 
appointment came to put a climax to their dismay. 
What might not be expected they asked in terror, 
under a man so unscrupulous and so bigoted, with 
an army, too, composed mainly of Roman Catholics 
at his back to enforce his orders ? The depar- 
ture of Clarendon was thus the signal for a new 
Protestant exodus. Wild reports of a general mas- 
sacre, one which was to surpass the massacre of '41, 
flew through the land. Terrified people flocked to 
the sea-coast and embarked in any boat they could 
find for England. Those that remained behind drew 
themselves together for their own defence within bar- 
ricaded houses, and in the towns in the north, 
especially in Enniskillen and Londonderry, the 
Protestant inhabitants closed their gates and made 
ready to withstand a siege. 

Meanwhile in Dublin sentences of outlawry were fast 
being reversed, and the estates of the Protestants being 
restored in all directions to their former proprietors. 
The charters of the corporate towns were next revoked, 
and new (by preference Catholic) aldermen and 
mayors appointed by the viceroy. All Protestants 
were ordered to give up their arms by a certain day, 
and to those who did not, " their lives and goods," it 
was announced, "should be at the mercy and discretion 
. of the soldiers." These soldiers, now almost exclu- 
sively Catholic, lived at free quarters upon the farms 



282 OPPRESSION AND COUNTER OPPRESSION. 

and estates of the Protestants. " Tories," lately 
out " upon their keeping," with prices upon their 
heads, were now officers in the king's service. The 
property of Protestants was seized all over the 
country, their houses taken possession of, their sheep 
and cattle slaughtered by hundreds of thousands. 
All who could manage to escape made for the north, 
where the best Protestant manhood of the country 
had now gathered together, and was standing reso- 
lutely in an attitude of self-defence. 

In England, William of Orange had meanwhile 
landed in Torbay, and James had fled precipitately to 
France. Tyrconnel, who seems to have been un- 
prepared for this event, hesitated at first, undecided 
what to do or how matters would eventually shape 
themselves. He even wrote to William, professing 
to be rather favourable than otherwise to his cause, 
a profession which the king, who was as yet anything 
but firm in his own seat, seems to have listened to with 
some belief, and General Richard Hamilton was sent 
over by him to negotiate matters with the viceroy. 

The passions awakened on both sides were far 
too strong however, for any such temporizing. 
Louis XIV. had received James upon his flight 
with high honour, and his return to the throne 
was believed by his own adherents to be immi- 
nent. In England, especially in London, the ex- 
citement against the Irish Catholics was prodigious, 
and had been increased by the crowd of Protestant 
refugees who had recently poured in. The Irish 
regiments brought to England by James had been 
insultingly disbanded, and their officers put under 



LANDING OF yAMES II. AT KINS ALE. 283 

arrest. " Lilibullero," the anti-Catholic street song, 
was sung by thousands of excited lips. Lord Jefferies, 
who embodied in his own person all that the popular 
hatred most detested in his master's rule, had been 
dragged to prison amid the threatening howls of the 
populace. The " Irish night," during which — though 
without the faintest shadow of reason — the London 
citizens had fully believed an Irish mob to be in 
the act of marching upon the town, with the set pur- 
pose of massacring every Protestant man, woman, and 
child in it, had worked both town and nation to the 
highest possible pitch of excitement. In Ireland too 
the stream had gone too far and too fast to turn 
back. The minority and the majority stood facing 
one another like a pair of pugilists. The Pro- 
testants, whose property had been either seized or 
wasted, were fast concentrating themselves behind 
Lough Foyle. Thither Tyrconnel sent Richard 
Hamilton — who, deserting William, had thrown him- 
self upon the other side — with orders to reduce 
Londonderry before aid could arrive from Eng- 
land. To James himself Tyrconnel wrote, urging 
him to start for Ireland without delay. Though 
unprepared at present to furnish soldiers, Louis was 
munificent in other respects. A fleet of fourteen men- 
of-war, with nine smaller vessels, was provided. Arms, 
ammunition, and money without stint were placed 
at the command of the exile, and a hundred French 
officers with the Count d'Avaux, one of the king's 
most trusted officials, as envoy, were sent to accom- 
pany the expedition. On March 12, 1689, James II. 
landed at Kinsale. 



XLIII. 



WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND. 



James's appearance in Ireland was hailed with a 
little deserved burst of enthusiasm. As a king, as 
a Catholic, and as a man in deep misfortune, he 
had a triple claim upon the kindly feeling of a race 
never slow to respond to such appeals. All along 
the road from Cork to Dublin the people ran out 
out in crowds to greet him with tears, blessings, and 
cries of welcome. Women thronged the banks along 
the roadsides, and held up their children to see him 
go by. Flowers — as to the poor quality of which 
it was hardly worth Lord Macaulay's while, by 
the way, to speak so disparagingly — were offered for 
his acceptance, or strewn under his feet. Every mark 
of devotion which a desperately poor country could 
show was shown Vv^ithout stint. Accompanied by 
the French ambassador, amid a group of English 
exiles, and advancing under a waving roof of flags 
and festoons, hastily improvised in his honour, the 
least worthy of the Stuarts arrived in Dublin, and 
took up his residence at the castle. 

His sojourn there was certainly no royal bed of 
roses! The dissensions between his English and his 



CONFLICTING INTERESTS. 285 

Irish followers were not only deep, but ineffaceable. By 
each the situation was regarded solely from the stand- 
point of his own country. Was James to remain in 
Ireland and to be an Irish king ? or was he merely to 
use Ireland as a stepping-stone to England ? Between 
two such utterly diverse views no point of union was 
discoverable. 

In the interests of his own master, D'Avaux, the 
French envoy, strongly supported Tyrconnel and the 
Irish leaders. The game of France was less to re- 
place James on the English throne than to make of 
Ireland a permanent thorn in the side of England. 
With this view he urged James to remain in Dublin, 
where he would necessarily be more under the direct 
control of the parliament. James, however declined 
this advice, and persisted in going north, where he 
would be within a few hours' sail of Great Britain. 
Once Londonderry had fallen (and it was agreed 
upon all hands that Londonderry could not hold out 
much longer), he could at any moment cross to Scot- 
land, where it was believed that his friends would at 
once rally around him. 

But Londonderry showed no symptoms of yielding. 
In April, 1689, James appeared before its walls, be- 
lieving that he had only to do so to receive its sub- 
mission. He soon found his mistake. Lundy, its 
governor, was ready indeed to surrender it into his 
hands, but the townsfolk declined the bargain, and shut 
their gates resolutely in the king's face. Lundy es- 
caped for his life over the walls, and James, in disgust, 
returned to Dublin, leaving the conduct of the siege 
in the hands of Richard Hamilton, who was afterwards 



286 WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND. 

superseded in the command by De Rosen, a Muscovite 
in the pay of France, who prosecuted it with a bar- 
barity unknown to the annals of civiHzed warfare. 

The tale of that heroic defence has been so told 
that it need assuredly never, while the world lasts, 
be told again. Suffice it then that despite the false- 
ness of its governor, the weakness of its walls, the lack 
of any military training on the part of its defenders ; 
despite the treacherous dismissal of the first ships 
sent to its assistance ; despite the long agonj^ of seeing 
other ships containing provisions hanging inertly at the 
mouth of the bay ; despite shot and shell without, and 
famine in its most grisly forms within — despite all this 
the little garrison held gallantly on to the "last ounce 
of horse-flesh and the last pinch of corn." At length, 
upon the 105th day of the siege, three ships, under 
Kirke's command, broke through the boom in the 
channel, and brought their freights in safety to 
the starved and ghastly defenders, gathered like 
ghosts, rather than human beings, upon the quay, 
Three days later De Rosen broke up his camp, and 
moved off in disgust, leaving behind him the little 
city, exhausted but triumphant, having saved the 
honour of its walls, and won itself imperishable fame. 

While all this was going on in the north, James, in 
Dublin, had been busily employed in deluging the 
country with base money to supply his own necessi- 
ties, with the natural result of ruining all who were 
forced to accept it. At the same time the Parliament 
under his nominal superintendence had settled down 
to the congenial task of reversing most of the earlier 
Acts, and putting everything upon an entirely new 



THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT SET ASIDE. 287 

footing. It was a Parliament composed, as was 
natural, almost wholly of Roman Catholics, only six 
Protestants having been returned. Its first task was 
to repeal Poynings Act, the Act, which, it will be 
remembered, was passed in Henry VII. 's reign, binding 
it in dependence upon the English Parliament. Its next 
to establish freedom of worship, giving the Roman 
Catholic tithes to the priests. So far no objections 
could reasonably be raised. Next, however, followed 
the question of forfeitures. The hated Act of Settle- 
ment, upon which all property in Ireland was now 
based, was set aside, and it was setted that all lands 
should revert to their former proprietors. Then fol- 
lowed the punishment of the political adversaries. 
" The hugest Bill of attainder," says Mr. Green, " the 
world has seen," was hastily drawn up and passed. 
By its provisions over 2,240 persons were attained, 
and everything that they possessed vested in the 
king. Many so attained were either women or young 
children, indeed a large proportion of the names seem 
to have been inserted at haphazard or from some 
merely momentary feeling of anger or vindictiveness. 
These Acts were perhaps only what is called 
natural, but it must be owned that they were also ter- 
ribly unfortunate. Up to that date those directly penal 
laws against Catholics which afterwards disfigured the 
statute book were practically unknown. A Catholic 
could sit in either Irish House of Parliament ; he 
could inherit lands, and bequeath them to whom he 
would ; he could educate his children how and where 
he liked. The terror planted in the breast of the 
Protestant colony by that inoperative piece of legis 



288 WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND. 

lation found its voice in the equally violent, but 
unfortunately not equally inoperative, passed Acts 
by them in the hour of t/iezr triumph. Acts, by 
means of which it was fondly hoped that their enemies 
would be thrown into such a position of dependence 
and humiliation that they could never again rise up 
to be a peril. 

In the north a brilliant little victory had meanwhile 
been won by the Enniskillen troops under Colonel 
Wolseley, at Newtown Butler, where they attacked a 
much larger force of the enemy and defeated them, 
killing a large number and driving the rest back in 
confusion. William was still detained in England, 
but had despatched the Duke of Schomberg with 
a considerable force. Schomberg's men, were mostly 
raw recruits, and the climate tried them severely. 
He arrived in the autumn, but not venturing to take 
the field, established himself at Dundalk, where his 
men misbehaved and all but mutinied, and where, a 
pestilence shortly afterwards breaking out, swept them 
away in multitudes. 

On both sides, indeed, the disorganization of the 
armies was great. Fresh reinforcements had arrived 
for James, under the Gomte de Lauzan, in return for 
which an equal number of Irish soldiers under Colonel 
Macarthy had been drafted for service to France. In 
June, 1690, William himself landed at Carrickfergus 
with an army of 35,000 men, composed of nearly 
every nationality in Europe — Swedes, Dutch, Swiss, 
Batavians, French Huguenots, Finns, with about 
15,000 English soldiers. He came up to James's army 
upon the banks of the Boyne, about twenty miles 



BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. 289 

from Dublin, and here it was that the turning battle 
of the campaign was fought. 

This battle James watched at a discreet distance 
from the hill of Donore. The Irish foot, upon 
whom the brunt of the action fell, were untrained, 
indifferently armed, and had never before been in 
action ; their opponents were veterans trained in 
European wars. They were driven back, fled, and 
a considerable number of them slaughtered. The 
Irish cavalry stood firm, but. their valour was power- 
less to turn the day. Schomberg was killed, but 
William remained absolute and undisputed master of 
the field. 

At the first shock of reverse James flew down the 
hill and betook himself to Dublin. He arrived there 
foaming and almost convulsed with rage. " Madam, 
your countrymen have run away ! " was his gracious 
address to Lady Tyrconnel. " If they have, sire, your 
Majesty seems to have won the race," was that lady's 
ready retort. 

The king's flight was without reason or measure. 
As before in England, so now, he seemed to pass in 
a moment from insane self-confidence to an equally 
insane panic. He fled south, ordering the bridges to 
be broken down behind him ; took boat at Waterford, 
and never rested until he found himself once more 
safe upon French soil. 

His flight at least left the field clear for better 
men. Patrick Sarsfield now took the principal 
command, and prosecuted the campaign with a 
vigour of which it had hitherto shown no symptoms. 
Sarsfield is the one redeeming figure upon the 



290 WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND. 

Jacobite side. His gallant presence sheds a ray of 
chivalric light upon this otherwise gloomiest and least 
attractive of campaigns. He could not turn defeat to 
victory, but he could, and did succeed in snatching 
honour out of that pit into which the other leaders, and 
especially his master, had let it drop. Brave, honour- 
able, upright, " a gentleman of eminent merit," is 
praise which even those least inclined to favour his 
side of the quarrel bestow upon him without stint. 

William, now established in Dublin, issued a procla- 
mation offering full and free pardon to all who would 
lay down their arms. He was genuinely anxious to avoid 
pushing the struggle to the bitter end, and to hinder 
further bloodshed. Though deserted by their king, 
and fresh from overwhelming defeat, the Irish troops 
showed no disposition, however, of yielding. Athlone, 
Galway, Cork, Kinsale, and Limerick still held out, 
and behind the walls of the last named the remains 
of James's broken army was now chiefly collected. 
Those walls, however, were miserably weak, and the 
French generals utterly scouted the possibility of 
their being held. Tyrconnel, too, advised a capitu- 
lation, but Sarsfield insisted upon holding the town, 
and the Irish soldiers- — burning to wipe out the shame 
of the Boyne — supported him like one man. William 
was known, to be moving south to the attack, and 
accordingly Lauzan and Tyrconnel, with the rest of 
the French troops moved hastily away to Galway, 
leaving Sarsfield to defend Limerick as he could. 

They had hardly left before William's army ap- 
peared in sight with the king himself at their head, 
and drew up before the walls, A formidable siege 



SIEGE OF LIMERICK. 2gi 

train, sent after him from Dublin, was to follow in a 
day or two. Had it arrived it would have finished 
the siege at once. Sarsfield accordingly slipped out 
of the town under cover of night, fell upon it while 
it was on its way through the Silvermine Hills 
in Tipperary, killed some sixty of the men who were 
in charge, and filling the cannons with powder, burst 
them with an explosion which startled the country 
round for miles, and the roar of which is said to have 
reached William in his camp before Limerick. 

This brilliant little feat delayed the siege. Never- 
theless it was pressed on with great vigour. Two 
more guns were obtained, several of the outworks 
carried, and a breach began to show in the ram- 
parts. It was now autumn, the rainy season was 
setting in, and William's presence was urgently wanted 
in England. After another violent alttempt, therefore, 
to take the town, which was resisted with the most 
desperate valour, the very women joining in the fight, 
and remaining under the hottest fire, the besiegers 
drew off, and William shortly afterwards sailed for 
England, leaving the command in the hands of Ginkel, 
the ablest of his Dutch generals. 

This first siege of Limerick is in many respects 
a very remarkable one, and bears a close analogy 
to the yet more famous siege of Londonderry. To 
give the parallel in Lord Macaulay's words — "The 
southern city," he says " was, like the northern city, 
the last asylum of a Church and of a nation. Both 
places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of 
Ireland. Both places appeared to men who had made 
a regular study of the art of war incapable of resisting 



292 WILLIAM AND yAMES IN IRELAND. 

an enemy, ... In both cases, religious and patriotic 
enthusiasm struggled unassisted against great odds ; 
in both cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm did 
what veteran warriors had pronounced it absurd to 
attempt." 

In Galway, meanwhile, violent quarrels had broken 
out. The French troops were sick, naturally enough, 
of the campaign, and not long afterwards sailed 
for France. Their places were taken later on by 
another body of French soldiers under General St. 
Ruth. St. Ruth was a man of cold, disdainful tem- 
perament, but a good officer. He at once set to 
work at the task of restoring order and getting the 
army into a condition to take the field. Early in the 
spring Ginkel had collected his army in Mullingar 
ready to march to the assault of Athlone, the ancient 
Norman fortress, upon the bank of the Shannon, which 
was here spanned by a single bridge. Upon Ginkel's 
advance this bridge was broken down, and the besieged 
and besiegers were separated therefore by the breadth 
of the river. After an unsuccessful attempt to repair 
the breach the Dutch general resolved to ford the 
latter. As it happened the water was unusually low, 
and although St. Ruth with a large force was at the 
time only a mile away, he, unaccountably, made no 
attempt to defend the ford. A party of Ginkel's 
men waded or swam across in the dark, caught the 
broken end of the bridge, and held it till it was 
repaired. This done, the whole English army poured 
across the river. 

The struggle was now narrowing fast. Leaving 
Athlone Ginkel advanced to Ballinasloe, so well- 



BATTLE OF AUGHRIM. 



293 



known now from its annual sheep fairs. The country 
here is all but a dead flat, but the French general 
took advantage of some rising ground on the slope 
of which stood the ruined castle of Aughrim. Here 
the Irish were posted by him in force, one of those 
deep brown bogs which cover so much of the surface 
of Galway lying at their feet and surrounding them 
upon two sides. 

The battle which broke at five o'clock the next 
morning was a desperate one. Roused at last 
from his coldness St. Ruth appealed in the most 
moving terms to the officers and men to fight for 
their religion, their liberties, their honour. His appeal 
was gallantly responded to. A low stone breast-work 
had been raised upon the hillside in front of the Irish, 
and against this Ginkel's veterans again and again 
advanced to the attack, and again and again were 
beaten back, broken and, in one instance, chased 
down the hill on to the plain. St. Ruth broke into 
vehement enthusiasm. "The day," he cried, waving 
his hat in the air, "is ours, gentlemen !" A party of 
Huguenot cavalry, however, were presently seen to be 
advancing across the bog so as to turn the flank of the 
Irish army. It seemed to be impossible that they 
could get through, but the ground was firmer than at 
first appeared, and some hurdles' thrown down in front 
of them formed a sort of rude causeway. St. Ruth 
flew to the point of danger. On his way he was struck 
by a cannon ball which carried off his head, and the 
army was thus left without a general. Sarsfield was 
at some distance with the reserve. There was no one 
to give any orders. The breast-work was carried. 



294 WILLIAM AND JAMES IN IRELAND. 

The Irish fought doggedly, retreating slowly from 
enclosure to enclosure. At last, left to themselves^ 
with no one to direct or support them, they broke 
and fled down the hill. Then followed a hideous 
butchery. Few or no prisoners were taken, and 
the number of the slain is stated to have been " in 
proportion to the number engaged greater than in 
any other battle of that age." An eye-witness who 
looked from the hill the next day said that the 
country for miles around was whitened with the 
naked bodies of the slain. It looked, he remarked 
with grim vividness, like an immense pasture covered 
with flocks of sheep ! 



INITIAL LETTER FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS. 




XLIV. 

THE TREATY OF LIMERICK. 

Nothing was now left but Limerick. Galway 
had yielded immediately after the day of Aughrim, 
its garrison claiming and obtaining the right of march- 
ing out with all- the honours of war. Tyrconnel was 
dying, and had long lost, too, what little reputa- 
tion he had ever had as a soldier. Sarsfield, how- 
ever, stood firm to the last. Fresh reinforcements 
were hoped for from France, but none came until too 
late to be of any use. The town was again invested 
and besieged. An English fleet held the mouth 
of the Shannon so as to prevent any relief from 
coming to its aid. From the middle of August to 
the end of September the siege went on, and the 
walls, always weak, were riddled with shot and shell. 
Still it showed no symptoms of submission. Ginkel, 
who was in command of William's army, dreaded 
the approach of autumn, and had instructions from 
his master to finish the campaign as rapidly as 
possible, and with this end in view to offer good and 
honourable terms to the Irish. An armistice accord- 
ingly was agreed to for three days, and before the 
three days ended the famous " Articles of Limerick " 



296 THE TREATY OF LIMERICK. 

were drawn up and signed by Sarsfield on the one 
hand, and the Lords Justices, who had just arrived 
in camp from DubHn, on the other. 

The exact purport of these articles, and the extent 
to which they were afterwards mutilated and perverted 
from their original meaning has been hotly disputed, 
and is too large and complicated a question to enter 
into here at any length. Suffice it to say, that they 
engaged that the Roman Catholics of Ireland should 
enjoy the same priv^ileges as they had previously enjoyed 
in the reign of Charles II. ; that they should be free to 
follow the same trades and professions as before the war, 
and that all who were in arms, having a direct com- 
mission from King James, " with all such as were 
nndei' their protection',' should have a free pardon and 
be left in undisputed ownership of their lands and 
other possessions. 

It is over the clause placed in italics that con- 
troversy has waxed fiercest. That it was in the first 
draft is admitted ; that it was not in the document 
itself is equally certain. Had it been intentionally or 
accidentally excluded } is the question. William's 
own words were that it had been " casually omitted 
by the writer." The evidence seems clear, yet his- 
torians, who on other matters would hardly question 
his accuracy, seem to think that in this instance he 
was mistaken. That his own mind was clear on the 
point there can be little doubt, seeing that he made the 
most honourable efforts to get the clause in question 
carried into effect. In this he failed. Public opinion 
in England ran furiously against the Irish Catholics, 
and the Parliament absolutely refused to ratify it. 



THE MILITARY TREATY. 297 

The essential clause was accordingly struck out, and 
the whole treaty soon became an absolute dead letter. 

On the other hand,themilitaryone, which was drawn 
up at the same time and signed by the two generals, 
was carried honourably into effect. By its terras 
it was agreed that such Irish officers and soldiers as 
desired to go to France should be conveyed there, and 
in the meantime should remain under the command of 
their own officers. Ginkel made strenuous efforts to 
enlist the Irish troops in his master's service. Few, 
however, agreed to accept his offer. A day was fixed 
for the election to be made, and the Irish troops were 
passed in review. All who would take service with 
William were directed to file off at a particular spot ; 
all who passed it were held to have thrown in their 
lot with France. The long procession was watched 
with keen interest by the group of generals looking 
on, but the decision was not long delayed. The vast 
majority unhesitatingly elected exile, only about a 
thousand agreeing to take service with William. 

The most piteous part of the story remains. Sars- 
field, with the soldiers under him who had elected to 
go to France, withdrew into Limerick, and the next 
day proceeded to Cork, where they were to embark. 
The news had, in the meanwhile, spread, and the 
foads were covered with women rushing to see the last 
of husbands, brothers, sons. Wives, mothers, and 
children followed the departing exiles to the water's 
edge, imploring with cries of agony not to be left 
behind. In the extremity of his pity Sarsfield pro- 
claimed that his soldiers might take their wives and 
families with them to France. It was found utterly 



2g8 



THE TREATY OF LIMERICK. 



impossible, however, to do so, since no transport 
could be provided for such a multitude. Room was 
found for a few families, but the beach was still 
crowded with those who had perforce to be left 
behind. As the boats pushed off the women clung 
desperately to them, and several, refusing to let go, 
were dragged out of their depth and drowned. A 
wild cry went up as the ships began to move. The 
crowd rushed frantically along the shore from head- 
land to headhand, following them with their eyes as 
long as they remained in sight. When the last ship 
had dropped below the horizon, and the dull autumn 
dusk had settled down over sea and shore, they dis- 
persed slowly to their desolate homes. Night and 
desolation must indeed have seemed to have settled 
down for good upon Ireland. 





XLV. 

THE PENAL CODE. 

We are now upon the brink of a century as full of 
strange fortunes for Ireland as any that had preceded 
it, but in which those fortunes were destined to take 
a widely different turn. In the two preceding ones 
revolts and risings had, as we have seen, been the 
rule rather than the exception. In this one from the 
beginning down to within a couple of years of its 
close when a rebellion — which, in most impartial 
historians' opinion, might with a little care have been 
averted — broke the peace of the century, hardly a 
symptom of any disposition to appeal to arms is 
discoverable. Two great Jacobite risings convulsed 
England ; the American revolt, so fraught with 
momentous consequences, was fought and carried, 
but Ireland never stirred. The fighting element was 
gone. It was in France, in Spain, in the Low Countries 
— scattered over half the battlefields of Europe. The 
country which gave birth to these fighters was quiet ; 
a graveyard quiet, it may be said, but still significant, 
if only by contrast with what had gone before. 

One advantage which the student of this century 
has over others is that it has been made the subject 
of a work which enables us to thread our way through 



300 THE PENAL CODE. 

its mazes with what, in comparison to other periods 
may be called ease. In his " History of the Eigh- 
teenth Century " Mr. Lecky has done for the Ireland 
of one century what it is much to be desired some 
one would hasten to do for the Ireland of all. He 
has broken down a barrier of prejudice so solid 
and of such long standing that it seemed to be in- 
vulnerable, and has proved that it is actually possible 
to be just in two directions at once — a feat no 
previous historian of Ireland can be said to have even 
attempted. This work, the final volume of which 
has not yet appeared, so completely covers the whole 
ground that it seems to afford an excuse for an even 
more hasty scamper over the same area than the 
exigencies of space have elsewhere made inevitable. 

The task to which both the English and the Irish 
Parliaments now energetically addressed themselves 
was— firstly, the undoing of the Acts passed in the late 
reign ; secondly, the forfeiture of the estates of those 
who had taken the losing side in the late campaign ; 
thirdly, the passing of a series of Acts the aim of 
which was as far as possible to stamp out the Roman 
Catholic religion altogether, and in any case to 
deprive it of any shadow or semblance of future 
political importance. 

To describe at length the various Acts which make 
up what is known as the Penal code — "a code impos- 
sible," as Mr. Lecky observed in an earlier work, " for 
any Irish Protestant whose mind is not wholly per- 
verted by religious bigotry, to look back at without 
shame and indignation," would take too long. It 
will be enough, therefore, if I describe its general 



STATE " BOYCOTTING. 30I 

purport, and how it affected the political and social 
life of that century upon which we are now entering. 
In several respects it not a little resembled what is 
nowadays known as " boycotting," only it was boy- 
cotting inflicted by the State itself As compared 
with some of the enactments passed against Protes- 
tants in Catholic countries, it was not, it must be said, 
sanguinary, but its aim seemed to be to make life itself 
intolerable ; to reduce the whole Catholic population 
to the condition of pariahs and outcasts. No Papist 
might possess a horse of the value of over ^5 ; no 
Papist might carry arms ; no Papist might dispose 
as he chose of his own property ; no Papist might 
acquire any landed freehold ; no Papist might prac- 
tise in any of the liberal professions ; no Papist might 
educate his sons at home; neither might he send them 
to be educated abroad. Deeper wrong, more biting 
and terrible injury even than these, it sowed bitter 
strife between father and son, and brother and brother. 
Any member of a family, by simply turning Protestant, 
could dispossess the rest of that family of the bulk of 
the estate to his own advantage. Socially, too, a Papist, 
no matter what his rank, stood below, and at the 
mercy of, his Protestant neighbours. He was treated 
by the executive as a being devoid, not merely of all 
political, but of all social rights, and only the numerical 
superiority of the members of the persecuted creed 
can have enabled them to carry on existence under 
such circumstances at all. 

For it must be remembered (and this is one of its 
worst features) that those placed under this monstrous 
ban constituted the vast majority of the whole country. 



302 THE PENAL CODE. 

In Burke's memorable words, "This system of penalty 
and incapacity has for its object no small sect or 
obscure party, but a very numerous body of men, a 
body which comprehends at least two-thirds of the 
whole nation ; it amounts to two million eight hun- 
clred thousand souls — a number sufficient for the 
constituents of a great people." ^ " The happiness 
or misery of multitudes," he adds in another place, 
" can never be a thing indifferent. A law against 
the majority of the people is in substance a law 
against the people itself ; its extent determines 
its invalidity ; it even changes its character as it 
enlarges its operation ; it is not particular injustice, 
but general oppression, and can no longer be con- 
sidered as a private hardship which might be born*e, 
but spreads and grows up into the unfortunate 
importance of a national calamity." 

As was natural under the circumstances, many 
feigned conversions took place, that being the only 
way to avoid been utterly cut adrift from public 
life. For by a succession of enactments, not only 
were the higher offices and the professions debarred 
to Roman Catholics, but they were even prohibited 
— to so absurd a length can panic go — from being 
sheriffs, jurymen, constables, or even gamekeepers. 
" Every barrister, clerk, attorney, or solicitor," to 
quote again Burke, " is obliged to take a solemn 
oath not to employ persons of that persuasion ; no, 
not as hackney clerks, at the miserable salary of 
seven shillings a week." It was loudly complained of 
many years later, that men used to qualify for taking 
* "Tracts on the Popery Laws." 



NON-ENFORCEMENT OF PENALTIES. 303 

the oaths required upon being admitted as barristers 
or attorneys by attending church and receiving a 
sacramental certificate on their road to Dublin. Others, 
to save their property from confiscation, sacrificed 
their inclinations, often what they held to be their 
hopes of salvation, to the exigencies of the situation, 
and nominally embraced Protestantism. Old Lady 
Thomond, for instance, upon being reproached by 
some stricter co-religionist for thus imperilling her 
soul, asked with quick scorn whether it was not 
better that one old woman should burn than that the 
Thomonds should lose their own. The head of the 
house would thus often present himself or herself at 
the parish church, while the other members of the 
family kept to the old faith, and the chaplain, under 
the name of the tutor or secretary, celebrated mass 
in the harness- room or the servants' hall. 

To the credit of Irish Protestants it may be said 
that, once the first violence of fanaticism had died 
out, there was little attempt to enforce the legal 
enactments in all their hideous atrocity. According to 
the strict letter of the law, no Roman Catholic bishop, 
archbishop, or other dignitary ; no monk, nun, or 
member of any religious fraternity, could set foot in 
Ireland ; and any one who harboured them was liable 
at the third offence to confiscation of all his goods, A 
list of parish priests was also drawn up and certified, 
and their names entered, and when these had died no 
others were by law allowed to come, any so doing 
being liable to the penalties of high treason. As a 
matter of fact, however, they came with very little 
hindrance, and the succession was steadily kept up 



304 THE PENAL CODE. 

from the Continent. The attempt to stamp out a 
religion by force proved to be the most absolute of 
failures, although, as no rule is without its exception, 
it must be added that in England, where exactly 
the same penal laws were in force, and where the 
number of Roman Catholics was at the beginning of 
the century considerable, they dwindled by the end of 
it almost to the point of extinction. In Ireland 
the reverse was the case. The number of Roman 
Catholics, according to the most trustworthy statistics, 
increased rather than diminished under the Penal 
code, and there were many more conversions from 
Protestantism to Catholicism than there were the 
other way. 

This, no doubt, was in great measure due to the 
neglect with which the scattered Protestant com- 
munities were treated, especially in the south and 
west. The number of Protestant clergymen was 
extremely small, as many as six, seven, and even ten 
livings being frequently held by a single individual, 
and of these many were absentees, and their place 
filled by a curate. Thus — isolated in a vast Roman 
Catholic community, often with no church of their own 
within reach — the few Protestants drifted by a natural 
law to the faith of their neighbours. On the emphatic 
and angry testimony of Archbishop Boulter, we know 
that conversions from Protestantism to Catholicism 
were in his time extremely common amongst the 
lower orders. By law, too, no marriage between a 
Protestant and Catholic was recognizable, yet there 
were many such, and the children in most cases seem 
to have reverted to the elder faith. 




"tiger" ROCHE, A FAMOUS IRISH DUELIST, BORN IN DUBLIN 1729. 



3o6 THE PENAL CODE. 

The best side of all this for the Catholics showed 
itself in that feeling of devotion and fealty to their 
own faith which persecution rarely fails to awaken, 
and for which the Roman Catholics of Ireland, high 
and low alike, have always been honourably distin- 
guished. The worst was that this sense of being 
under an immoveable ban sapped at all the roots of 
manliness and honourable ambition. Amongst the 
well-to-do classes the more spirited of the young men 
went abroad and enlisted under foreign banners. 
The rest stayed at home, and fell into an idle, aimless, 
often disreputable, fashion of existence. The sense 
of being of no account, mere valueless items in the 
social hive, is no doubt answerable for a good deal 
of all this. Swift assures us that in his time the 
Catholic manhood of Ireland were of no more im- 
portance than its women and children ; of no more 
importa^nce, he adds in another place, than so many 
trees. With a patience pathetic in so essentially 
impatient a race, both priests and people seem to 
have settled down after awhile into a sort of desperate 
acceptance of the inevitable. So complete indeed 
was their submission that towards the close of the 
century we find the English executive, harassed and 
set at nought by its own Protestant colonists, turning 
by a curious nemesis to the members of this perse- 
cuted creed, whose patience and loyalty three quarters 
of a century of unexampled endurance seemed to have 
gone far to prove 



XLVI. 

THE COMMERCIAL CODE. 

All power, place, and authority had thus once 
more swung round into the hands of the Protestant 
colony — "The Protestant Ascendency," as it came 
after a while to be called. They alone had seats in 
Parliament, they alone, until near the end of the 
century, were competent to vote. Taxes were col- 
lected over the whole island, but only Protestants 
had a voice in their disposal. All the parliamentary 
struggles of this century, it must clearly be understood, 
were struggles between Protestants and Protestants, 
and the different political parties, " patriotic " and 
others, were parties formed exclusively amongst the 
Protestants themselves. Protestantism was not only 
the privileged, but it was also the polite, creed ; the 
creed of the upper classes, as distinguished from the 
creed of the potato-diggers and the turf-cutters ; a 
view of the matter of which distinct traces may even 
yet be discovered in Ireland. 

If Protestants, as compared with their Roman 
Catholic brethren, were happy, the Protestant colony 
was very far from being allowed its own way, or 
permitted to govern itself as it thought fit Although 



308 THE COMMERCIAL CODE. 

avowedly kept as her garrison, and to preserve her 
own power in Ireland, England had no notion of 
allowing it equal advantages with herself, or of running 
the smallest risk of its ever coming to stand upon 
any dangerous footing of equality. The fatal theory 
that it was the advantage of the one country that the 
other should be kept poor, had by this time firmly 
taken root in the minds of English statesmen, and to 
it, and to the unreasonable jealousy of a certain 
number of English traders, the disasters now to be 
recorded were mainly due. 

Cromwell had placed English and Irish commerce 
upon an equal footing. Early in Charles II.'s reign 
an Act had however been passed to hinder the 
importation of Irish cattle into England, one which 
had struck a disastrous, not to say fatal, blow at Irish 
agricultural interests. Then as now cattle was its 
chief wealth, and such a prohibition meant nothing 
short of ruin to the landowners, and through them to 
all who depended upon them. So far Irish ports 
were open, however, to foreign countries, and when 
the cattle trade ceased to be profitable, much of the 
land had been turned by its owners into sheepwalks. 
There was a large and an increasing demand for Irish 
wool upon the Continent, in addition to which a 
considerable number of manufacturers had of late 
started factories, and an energetic manufacture of 
woollen goods was going on, and rapidly becoming 
the principal form of Irish industry. The English 
traders, struck by this fact, were suddenly smitten 
with panic. The Irish competition, they declared, 
were reducing their gains, and they cried loudly, there- 



SMUGGLING. 309 

fore, for legislative protection. Their prayer was 
granted. In 1699, ^^^ ^^^^ Y^^^ o^ ^^^ century, an 
Act was passed forbidding the export of Irish woollen 
goods, not to England alone, but to «// other countries. 

The effect of this Act was instantaneous and 
startling. The manufacturers, who had come over in 
large numbers, left the country for the most part 
within six months, never to return again. A whole 
population was suddenly thrown out of employment. 
Emigration set in, but, in spite of the multitude that 
left, famine laid hold of many of those who remained. 
The resources of the poorest classes are always so 
low in Ireland that a much less sweeping blow than 
this would at any time have sufficed to bring them 
over the verge of starvation. 

Another important result was that smuggling 
immediately began on an enormous scale. Wool 
was now a drug in the legitimate market, and woollen 
goods had practically no market. A vast contraband 
trade sprang swiftly up upon the ruins of the legiti- 
mate one. Wool, which at home was worth only 5d. or 
6d. a lb., in France fetched half-a-crown. The whole 
population, from the highest to the lowest, flung 
themselves energetically on the side of the smugglers. 
The coast-line was long and intricate ; the excise 
practically powerless. Wool was packed in caves all 
along the south and south-west coast, and carried off as 
opportunity served by the French vessels which came 
to seek it. What was meant by nature and Provi- 
dence to have been the honest and open trade of the 
country was thus forced to be carried on by stealth 
and converted into a crime. It alleviated to some 



310 THE COMMERCIAL CODE. 

degree the distress, but it made Law seem more 
than ever a mockery, more than ever the one arch- 
enemy against which every man's hand might legiti- 
mately be raised. 

Even this, if bad enough, was not the worst. The 
worst was that this arbitrary Act — directed, it must 
be repeated, by England, not against the Irish natives, 
but against her own colonists — done, too, without 
there being an opportunity for the country to be 
heard in its own defence — struck at the very root of 
all enterprise, and produced a widespread feeling of 
hopelessness and despair. Since this was the acknow- 
ledged result of too successful rivalry with England, of 
what use, it was openly asked, to attempt any new 
enterprise, or what was to hinder the same fate from 
befalling it in its turn .? The whole relationship of 
the two islands, even where no division of blood or 
creed existed, grew thus to be strained and embittered 
to the last degree ; the sense of hostility and indig- 
nation being hardly less strong in the latest arrived 
colonist than in the longest established. " There was 
scarce an Englishman," says a writer of the time, 
" who had been seven years in the country, and meant 
to remain there, who did not become averse to England, 
rind grow into something of an Irishman." All this 
must be taken into account before those puzzling con- 
tradictions and anomalies which make up the history 
of this century can ever be properly realized. 



XLVII. 



MOLYNEUX AND SWIFT, 



The early half of the eighteenth century is such a 
very dreary period of Irish history that there is little 
temptation to linger over it. Two men, however, 
stand out conspicuously against this melancholy back- 
ground, neither of whom must be passed over without 
a few words. 

The first of these was William Molyneux, the , 
" Ingenious Molyneux," as he was called by his con- 
temporaries, a distinguished philosopher, whose life 
was almost exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. 
Molyneux is, or ought to be, a very interesting figure 
to any one who cares, even slightly, about Ireland. 
He was one of the chief founders of the Philosophical 
Association in Dublin, which was the parent both of 
the present Dublin Society and of the Royal Irish 
Academy. He was also a Fellow of the Royal 
Society, and a friend of John Locke, with whom he 
constantly corresponded. Both his letters, and those 
of his brother. Dr. Thomas Molyneux, show the most 
vivid and constant interest in everything connected 
with the natural history of Ireland. Now it is a 
moving bog, which has scared the natives in its neigh- 



312 MOLYNEUX AND SWIFT. 

bourhood out of their senses ; now, again, some great 
find of Irish elks, or some tooth of a mammoth which 
has been unearthed, and it is gravely discussed how such 
a " large-bodied beast " could have been transported 
over seas, especially to a country where the " Greeks 
and Romans never had a footing," and where therefore 
the learned Mr. Camden's theory, that the elephants' 
bones found in England were the remains of those 
" brought over by the Emperor Claudius," necessarily 
falls to the ground. Both the brothers Molyneux 
belong to a band of Irish naturalists whose numbers 
are, unfortunately, remarkably limited. Why it should 
be so is not easily explained, but so it is. When Irish 
archaeology is mentioned, the names of Petrie, of 
Wilde, of Todd, of Graves, and, last but not least, of 
Miss Margaret Stokes spring to the mind. Irish 
geologists, with Sir Richard Griffiths at their head, 
show as good a record as those of any other country, 
but the number of Irish naturalists whose fame has 
reached beyond a very narrow area is small indeed. 
This is the less accountable as, though scanty as 
regards the number of its species, the natural history 
of Ireland is full of interest, abounding in problems 
not even yet fully solved : the very scantiness of its 
fauna being in one sense, an incentive and stimulus 
to its study, for the same reason that a language which 
is on the point of dying out is often of more interest 
to a philologist than one that is in full life and vigour. 
This, however, is a digression, and as such must be 
forgiven. Returning to the arena of politics, Moly- 
neux's chief claim to remembrance rests upon a work 
published by him in favour of the rights of the Irish 



MOLYNEUX'S REMONSTRANCE. 3I3 

Parliament in the last year but one of the seventeenth 
century, only seven years therefore after the treaty of 
Limerick. 

As one of the members of the Dublin University 
he had every opportunity of judging how the grasp 
which the English Parliament maintained by means 
of the obsolete machinery of Poynings' Act was 
steadily throttling and benumbing all Irish enterprise. 
In 1698 his famous remonstrance, known as "The 
Case of Ireland being bound by Act of Parliament 
made in England," appeared, with a dedication to 
King William. It at once created an immense 
sensation, was fiercely condemned as seditious and 
libellous by the English Parliament, by whom, as a 
mark of its utter abhorrence, it was condemned to be 
burned by the common hangman. 

Few things will give a clearer idea of the extra- 
ordinarily exasperated state of politics at the time 
than to read the remonstrance which produced so 
tremendous a storm. Take, for example, the words 
with which the earlier portion of it closes, and which 
are worth studying, if only for the impressive dignity 
of their style, which not a little foreshadows Burke's 
majestic prose : — 

" To conclude, I think it highly inconvenient for 
England to assume this authority over the kingdom 
of Ireland. I believe there v/ill need no great argu- 
ments to convince the wise assembly of English 
senators how inconvenient it may be to England to 
do that which may make the lords and the people of 
Ireland think that they are not well used, and may 



314 MOLYNEUX AND SWIFT. 

drive them to discontent The laws and liberties of 
England were granted above five hundred years ago 
to the people of Ireland, upon their submission to the 
Crown of England, with a design to keep them in the 
allegiance of the king of England. How consistent 
it may be with true policy to do that which the people 
of Ireland may think an invasion of their rights and 
liberties, I do most humbly submit to the Parliament 
of England to consider. They are men of great 
wisdom, honour, and justice, and know how to prevent 
all future inconveniences. We have heard great out- 
cries, and deservedly, on breaking the edict of Nantes, 
and other stipulations. How far the breaking our 
constitution, which has been of five hundred years 
standing exceeded these, I leave the world to judge." 

In another place Molyneux vindicates the dignity 
of a Parliament in words of singular force and mode- 
ration : — 

" The rights of Parliament should be preserved 
sacred and inviolable wherever they are found. This 
kind of government, once so universal all over 
Europe, is now almost vanished amongst the nations 
thereof Our king's dominions are the only supporters 
of this most noble Gothic constitution, save only what 
little remains may be found thereof in Poland. We 
should not therefore make so light of that sort of 
legislature, and, as it were, abolish it in one kingdom 
of the three wherein it appears, but rather cherish and 
encourage it wherever we meet it." ^ 

^ "The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament made 

in England." By William Molyneux, Esq., Dublin, 



DEATH OF MOLYNEUX. 315 

For a remonstrance so dignified, couched in lan- 
guage so respectful, burning by the common hangman 
seems a hard lot. The disgrace, if such it was, does 
not appear to have very deeply penetrated its author, 
who pursued the even tenour of his way, and the 
same year paid a visit to his friend John Locke, on 
the return journey from which visit he unfortunately 
caught a chill, from the effects of which he died the 
following October. After his death the momentary 
stir which his eloquence had created died out, as the 
circles left by the falling of a stone die out upon some 
stagnant pool, until nearly a quarter of a century later 
a much more violent splash again aroused attention, 
and a far less pacific exponent of Irish abuses than 
Molyneux sprang fiercely into the turmoil. 

Jonathan Swift had been eleven years Dean of St. 
Patrick's before he produced those famous letters 
which have left their mark so indelibly upon the 
course of Irish politics. Swift's part in this Stygian 
pool of the eighteenth century is rather a diffi- 
cult one to explain. He was not in any sense an 
Irish champion, indeed, objected to being called an 
Irishman at all, and regarded his life in Ireland as 
one of all but unendurable banishment. He was a 
vehement High Churchman, and looked upon the 
existing penal proscription under which the Catholics 
lay as not merely desirable, but indispensable. At 
the same time it would be quite untrue to suppose, 
as is sometimes done, that he merely made a cat's- 
paw of Irish politics in order to bring himself back 
into public notice. He was a man of intense and even 
passionate sense of justice, and the state of affairs in 




DEAN SWIFT. 
[From an engraving by Fourdinler after Jervis.) 



THE DRAPIER LETTERS. 317 

the Ireland of his day, the tyranny and political dis- 
honesty which stalked in high places, the degradation 
and steadily-increasing misery in which the mass of 
the people were sunk, were enough to lash far less 
scathing powers of sarcasm than he possessed to 
their highest possible pitch of expression. 

The cause that drew forth the famous Drapier 
letters — why Swift chose to spell the word draper 
with an i no one has ever explained — appears at first 
sight hardly worthy of the occasion. Ireland wanted 
a copper coinage, and Walpole, who was then the 
Prime Minister, had given a patent for the purpose to 
a person called Wood, part of the profits of which 
patent were to go to the Duchess of Kendal, the 
king's mistress. There seems no reason to think that 
the pennies produced by Wood were in any way 
inferior to the existing English ones, and Sir Isaac 
Newton — who was at the time Master of the Mint — 
declared that, if anything, they were rather better. 
The real wrong, the real insult, was that the patent 
was granted by the Minister without reference to the 
Lord-Lieutenant, to the Irish Parliament, or to any 
single human being in Ireland. It was a proof the 
more of that total indifference with which the interests 
of Ireland were regarded, and it was upon this score 
that Swift's wrath exploded like a bomb. 

The line he chose to take was to attack the patent, 
not as a monstrous job — which undoubtedly it was — 
but from the point of view of the value of the pennies. 
Assuming the character of a tradesman, he adjured 
all classes of the community, down to the very beggars, 
not to be induced to accept them. Assured them that 



3l8 MOLYNEUX AND SWIFT. 

for the benefit of Mr. Wood, " a mean man, a hardware 
dealer," every human being in Ireland was about to be 
deliberately robbed and ruined. His logic sounded 
unanswerable to the ignorant. His diatribes produced 
the most extraordinary effect. A terrific panic set in, 
and so overwhelming was the sensation that the 
Ministers in the end found it necessary to cancel the 
patent, and suspend the issue of Wood's halfpence. 
For the first time in Irish history public opinion, un- 
supported by arms, had carried its point: an epoch 
of vast importance in the history of every country. 

That Swift knew perfectly well that the actual 
value of the copper coinage was not a matter of pro- 
found importance may be taken for granted, and so far 
his conduct is certainly not justifiable on any very strict 
rule of ethics. If the pennies were of small impor- 
tance, however, there were other things that were of 
more. Little of a patriot as he was, little as he was 
supposed, or supposed himself, to care for Ireland or 
Irishmen, his wrath burnt fiercely at what he saw 
around him. He saw, too, his own wrongs, as others 
have done before and since, "writ large" in the wrongs 
of the country, and resented them as such. With his 
keen, practical knowledge of men, he knew, more- 
over, how thick was that medium, born of prejudice 
and ignorance, through which he had to pierce — a 
medium through which nothing less pointed than the 
forked lightnings of his own terrible wit could have 
found its way. Whatever his motives were, his suc- 
cess at least is indisputable. High Churchman as he 
was, vehement anti-papist as he was, he became from 
that moment, and remained to the hour of his death, 



Wood's patjsnt cancelled. 



319 



beyond all question the most popular man in Ireland 
and his name was ever afterwards upon the lips of 
all who aspired to promote the best interests and 
prosperity of their country. 





XLVIII. 

HENRY FLOOD. 

The forty years which follow maybe passed rapidly 
over. They were years of absolute tranquillity in 
Ireland, but beyond that rather negative praise little 
of good can be reported of them. Public opinion was 
to all practical purposes dead, and the functions of 
Parliament were little more than nominal. Unlike 
the English one, the Irish Parliament had by the 
nature of its constitution, no natural termination, save 
by a dissolution, or by the death of the sovereign. 
Thus George the Second's Irish Parliament sat for 
no less than thirty-three years, from the beginning 
to the end of his reign. The sessions, too, had 
gradually come to be, not annual as in England, but 
biennial, the Lord-Lieutenant spending as a rule only 
six months in every two years in Ireland. In his 
absence all power was vested in the hands of the 
Lords Justices, of whom the most conspicuous during 
this period were the three successive archbishops of 
Armagh, namely. Swift's opponent Boulter, Hoadly, 
and Stone, all three Englishmen, and devoted to what 
was known as the " English interest," who governed 
the country by the aid of a certain number of great 




ERI'IEL.D. 

Deligitful taik! to rear the tender thought. 

To teach the yoimgfidea how to Ihoot, 

To pour the. frefh inftruotion o'er the inind, 

To breathe th'enhvening- fpirit.^ind to fi± 

The generous pvirpofe in the glowing- hreaft. xficmfan. 

LORD LIEUTENANT FROM 1 745 TO 1 754. 



322 ' UENRY flood. 

Irish borough-owners, or Undertakers, who " under- 
took " to carry on the king's business in consideration 
of receiving the lion's share of the patronage, which 
they distributed amongst their own adherents. Of 
these borough-owners Lord Shannon was the happy 
'possessor of no less than sixteen seats, while others 
had eight, ten, twelve, or more, which were regularly 
and openly let out to hire to the Government, Efforts 
were from time to time made by the more indepen- 
dent members to curtail these abuses, and to recover 
some degree of independence for the Parliament, but 
for a long time their efforts were without avail, and 
owing to the nature of its constitution, it was all but 
impossible to bring public opinion to bear upon its 
proceedings, so that the only vestige of independence 
shown was when a collision occurred between the sel- 
fish interests of those in whose hands all power was 
thus concentrated. 

About 1743 some stir began to be aroused by a 
succession of statements published by Charles Lucas, 
a Dublin apothecary, in the Freeman's Journal, a 
newspaper started by him, and in which he vehe- 
mently denounced the venality of Parliament, and 
loudly asserted the inherent right of Ireland to govern 
itself, a right of which it had only been formally 
deprived by the Declaratory Act of George I.^ So 
unequivocal was his language that the grand jury of 
Dublin at last gave orders for his addresses to be 
burnt, and in 1749 a warrant was issued for his appre- 
hension, whereupon he fled to England, and did not 
return until many years later, when he was at once 

' English Statutes, 6 Geo. c. 5. 



Bis early life. 323 

elected member for Dublin. His speeches in the 
House of Commons seem never to have produced an 
effect at all comparable with that of his writings, but 
he gave a constant and important support to the 
patriotic party, which had now formed itself into a 
small but influential opposition under the leadership 
of Henry Flood. 

Flood and Grattan are by far the two greatest of 
those orators and statesmen whose eloquence lit up the 
debates of the Irish House of Commons during its 
brief period of brilliancy, and as such will require, 
even in so hasty a sketch as this, to be dwelt upon at 
some length. Since a good deal of the same ground 
will have to be gone over in succeeding chapters, it 
seems best to explain here those points which affected 
them personally, and to show as far as possible in 
what relationship they stood one to the other. 

Henry Flood was born near Kilkenny in 1732, and 
was the son of the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 
At sixteen he went to Trinity College, Dublin, and 
afterwards to Oxford. In 1759 he entered the Irish 
Parliament as member for Kilkenny, and at once threw 
himself vehemently upon the popular side, his first 
speech being an attack upon the Primate Stone. As 
an orator his style appears to have been laboured, and 
his speeches brim over in all directions with forced illus- 
trations and metaphors, but his powers of argument 
and debate were remarkably strong. For about ten 
years he waged a continual struggle against the 
Government, urging especially a limitation to the 
duration of Parliament and losing no opportunity of 
asserting its claims to independence, or of attacking 




RIGHT HON. HENRY FLOOD. 

{After a drawing by Comerford.) 



RECALL OF LORD TOWNSHEND. 325 

the pension list, which under the system then pre- 
vailing grew steadily from year to year. Upon reform 
he also early fixed his attention, although, unlike 
Grattan, he was from the beginning to the end of his 
life steadily hostile to all proposals for giving the 
franchise to the Catholics. 

During the viceroyalty of Lord Townshend, who 
became Lord-Lieutenant in 1767, an Octennial Bill 
was passed limiting the duration of Parliament to 
eight years, but this momentary gleam of better 
things was not sustained ; on the contrary, corruption 
was, under his rule, carried even further than it had 
been before. Under the plea of breaking the power 
of the borough-owners, he set himself deliberately 
to make the whole Parliament subservient to Govern- 
ment, thus practically depriving it of what little 
vestige of independence it still possessed. A succes- 
sion of struggles took place, chiefly over Money Bills, 
the more independent members, under Flood's leader- 
ship, claiming for the Irish House of Commons the 
complete control of the national purse, a claim as 
uniformly resisted by the Government. Though 
almost invariably defeated on a division in the end 
the opposition were to a great degree successful, and 
in 1773 the hated viceroy was re-called. 

This was the moment at which Flood stood higher 
in his countrymen's estimation than was ever again 
the case. He was identified with all that was best in 
their aspirations, and no shadow of self-seeking had 
as yet dimmed the brightness of his fame. It was 
very different with his next step. Lord Townshend 
was succeeded by Lord Harcourt, whose administra- 



326 HENRY FLOOD. 

tion at first promised to be a shade more liberal and 
less corrupt than that of his predecessors. Of 
this administration Flood, to his own misfortune, 
became a member. What his motives were it is 
rather difficult to say. He was a rich man, and there- 
fore had no temptation to sell oi stifle his opinions for 
place. Whatever they were, it is clear, from letters 
still extant, that he not only accepted but solicited 
office. He was made Vice- Treasurer, a post hitherto 
reserved for Englishmen, at a salary of i^3,500 a year. 
Although, as Mr. Lecky has pointed out, no actual 
stain of dishonour attaches to Flood in consequence 
of this step, there can be no doubt that it was a grave 
error, and that he lived to repent it bitterly. For the 
next seven years not only was he forced to keep silence 
as regards all those points he had previously advocated 
so warmly, but, as a member of the Government, he 
actually helped to uphold some of the most damaging 
of the restraints laid upon Irish trade and prosperity. 
Upon the outbreak of the America war a two years' 
embargo was laid upon Ireland, and a force of 4,000 
men raised and despatched to America at its ex- 
pense. The state of defencelessness in which this left 
the country led, as will be seen in a succeeding chap- 
ter, to a great volunteer movement, in which all classes 
and creeds joined enthusiastically. Flood was unable 
to resist the contagion. His voice was once again 
heard upon the liberal side. He flung away the 
trammels of office, surrendered his large salary, and 
returned to his old friends. He never, however, re- 
gained his old place. A greater man had in the 
meanwhile risen to the front, and in Henry Grattan 



FLOOD AS AN ENGLISH MEMBER. 327 

Irish aspiration had found its clearest and strongest 
voice. 

This was a source of profound mortification 
to Flood, and led eventually to a bitter quarrel 
between these two men — patriots in the best sense 
both of them. Flood tried to outbid Grattan by 
pushing the concessions won from England in the 
moment of her difficulty yet further, and by making 
use of the volunteers as a lever to enforce his de- 
mands. This Grattan honourably, whether wisely or 
not, resisted, and the Parliament supported his resis- 
tance. After an unsuccessful attempt to carry a 
Reform Bill, Flood retired, to a great degree, from 
Irish public life, and not long afterwards succeeded in 
getting a seat in the English Parliament. His oratory 
there proved a failure. He was " an oak of the 
forest too great and old," as Grattan said, " to be 
transplanted at fifty." This failure was a fresh and a 
yet more mortifying disappointment, and his end was 
a gloomy and somewhat obscure one, but he will 
always be remembered with gratitude as one of the 
first who in the Irish Parliament lifted his voice 
against those restrictions under which the prosperity 
of the country lay shackled and all but dead. 




XLIX. 

HENRY GRATTAN. 

"Great men," wrote Sydney Smith, sixty years 
ago in an article in The Edinburgh Review, " hallow 
a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. 
What Irishman does not feel proud that he lived in 
the days of Grattan ? Who has not turned to him for 
comfort from the false friends and open enemies of 
Ireland ? Who did not remember him in the days of 
its burnings, vvastings, and murders?" 

Grattan is, indeed, pre-eminently the Irish politi- 
cian to whom other Irish politicians — however diverse 
their views or convictions -^-turn unanimously with the 
common sense of admiration and homage. Two 
characteristics— usually supposed in Ireland to be in- 
herently antagonistic — met harmoniously in him. 
He was consistently loyal and he was consistently 
patriotic. From the beginning to the end of his career 
his patriotism never hindered him either from risking 
his popularity whenever he considered duty or the 
necessities of the case required him to do so ; a reso- 
lution which more than once brought him into sharp 
collision with his countrymen, on one occasion even 
at some little risk to himself. 




RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN, M.P. 
{From an engraving by Godby after Pope.) 



330 HENRY GRATTAN. 

In 1775 he entered Parliament — sixteen years, 
therefore, later than Flood — being brought in by his 
friend Lord Charlemont. The struggle with America 
was then beginning, and all Grattan's sympathies 
went with those colonists who were battling for their 
own independence. His eloquence from the moment 
it was first heard produced an extraordinary effect, 
and when the volunteer movement broke out he threw 
himself heartily into it, and availed himself of it to 
press in the Irish Parliament for those measures of 
free trade and self-government upon which his heart 
was set. When the first of these measures was car- 
ried, he brought forward the famous Declaration of 
Rights, embodying the demand for independence, a 
demand which, in the first instance, he had to defend 
almost single-handed. Many of his best friends 
hung back, believing the time to be not yet ripe 
for such a proposal. Even Edmund Burke — the 
life-long and passionate friend of Ireland — cried out 
in alarm " Will no one speak to that madman ? Will 
no one stop that madman Grattan ? " The madman, 
however, went on undismayed. His words flew like 
wildfire over the country. He was supported in his 
motion by eighteen counties, by addresses from the 
grand juries, and by resolutions from the volunteers. 
By 1782, the impulse had grown so strong that it 
could no longer be resisted. An address in favour of 
Grattan's Declaration of Rights was carried enthu- 
siastically in April by the Irish Parliament, and so 
impressed was the Government by the determined 
attitude of the country that, by the 27th of May the 
Viceroy was empowered to announce the concurrence 



THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 331 

of the English legislature. The Declaratory Act of 
George I. was then repealed by the English Parliament. 
Bills were immediately afterwards passed by the 
Irish one embodying the Declaration of Rights, 
also a biennial Mutiny Act, and an Act validating 
the marriage of Dissenters, while, above all, Poynings' 
Act, which had so long fettered its free action, was 
once for all repealed. 

This was the happiest moment of Grattan's life. 
The country, with a burst of spontaneous gratitude, 
voted him a grant of ;^ioo,ooo. This sum he declined, 
but in the end was persuaded, with some reluctance, 
to take half A period of brief, but while it lasted 
unquestionable prosperity spread over the country. 
In Dublin, public buildings sprang up in. all direc- 
tions ; a bright little society flourished and enjoyed 
itself ; trade too prospered to a degree never hitherto 
known. Between England and Ireland, however, the 
commercial restrictions were still in force. The 
condition of the Irish Catholics, though latterly to 
some degree alleviated, was still one of all but un- 
endurable oppression. Reform, too, was as far off as 
ever, and corruption had increased rather than 
diminished, owing to the greatly increased importance 
of the Parliament. In 1789 an unfortunate quarrel 
sprang up between the two legislatures over the ap- 
pointment of a Regent, rendered necessary by the 
temporary insanity of George III., and this difference 
was afterwards used as an argument in favour of a 
legislative Union. In 1793 a measure of half-emanci- 
pation was granted, Roman Catholics being admitted 
to vote, though not to sit in Parliament, an anomalous 



33^ HENRY GRATTAN. 

distinction giving power to the ignorant, yet still 
keeping the fittest men out of public life. Upon the 
arrival of Lord Fitzwilliam as Viceroy in 1795, it 
was fervently believed that full emancipation was at 
last about to be granted, and Grattan brought in a 
Bill to that effect. These hopes, as will presently 
be seen, were destined to be bitterly disappointed. 
Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled, and from that 
moment Grattan was doomed to stand helplessly by 
and watch the destruction of that edifice which he 
had spent his whole life to erect and strengthen. The 
country grew more and more restless, and it was plain 
to all who could read the signs of the times that, 
unless discontent was in some way allayed, a rebellion 
was sure to break out. In 1798 this long foreseen 
calamity occurred, but before it did so, Grattan had 
retired heart-broken and despairing into private life. 

He re-emerged to plead, vehemently but fruitlessly, 
against the Union which was passed the following 
spring. As will be seen, when we reach that period 
the fashion in which that act was carried made it 
difficult for an honourable man, however loyal — and 
no man, it must be repeated, was more steadily loyal 
than Henry Grattan- — to give it his support. He 
believed too firmly that Ireland could work out its 
own destiny best by the aid of a separate Parliamenc, 
and to this opinion he throughout his life clung. In 
his own words, " The two countries from their size 
must stand together — united quoad nature — distinct 
quoad legislation," 

In 1805 he became a member of the English Par- 
liament, where unlike Flood, his eloquence had almost 



HIS DEATH. 333 

as much effect as in Ireland, and where he was regarded 
by all parties with the deepest respect and regard. 
His heart, however, remained firmly anchored to its 
old home, and all his recollections in his old age 
centred around these earlier struggles. He died in 
1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. One 
more quotation from Sydney Smith sums up the 
man for us in a few words : " The highest attainments 
of human genius were within his reach, but he thought 
the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men 
happy and free, and in that straight line he kept for 
fifty years, without one side-look, one yielding thought, 
one motive in his heart which might not have laid 
open to the view of God or man." A generation which 
produced two such men as Henry Grattan and 
Edmund Burke might well be looked back to by any 
country in the world as the flower and crown of its 
national life. There have not been many greater or 
better in the whole chequered history of the human 
race. 




L. 

THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 

The revolt of the English Colonies in America, 
although it evoked no disloyalty, had a strong and 
unforeseen influence upon the equally English colony 
in Ireland. It would have been strange had it not 
done so. The circumstances of the two colonies 
— looking at Ireland merely in that light-^were in 
many respects all but identical. If England could 
tax America without the consent of its representa- 
tives, then, equally it could tax Ireland, in which 
case the long struggles lately waged by Flood, Grat- 
tan, and others in the Irish Parliament over Money 
Bills would be definitely decided against it. Com- 
pared to Ireland, America indeed had little to com- 
plain of. The restrictions which held back Irish 
commerce still existed in almost all their pristine 
force. The woollen trade, save for some very trifling 
home consumption, was practically dead ; even the 
linen trade, which had been promised encourage- 
ment, had hitherto hardly received any. Bounties had 
been offered, on the contrary, to English woollen 
manufacturers, and duties levied on Irish sail-cloth, 
which had effectually put a stop to that important 



CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 335 

branch of the trade. Another cause had also affected 
commerce seriously. The manufacturers of the north, 
were almost to a man Presbyterian, and the laws 
against Presbyterians had been pressed with almost 
as much severity as against Catholics. Under the 
rule of Archbishops Boulter, Hoadly, and Stone, who 
had in succession governed the country, the Test 
Act had been employed with a suicidal severity, 
which had driven thousands of industrious men to 
join their brethren in America, where they could 
worship in peace, and where their presence was before 
long destined to produce a formidable effect upon the 
impending struggle. 

The whole condition of the country was miserable 
in the extreme. Agriculture was at the lowest 
possible ebb. The Irish farmers, excluded from the 
English and all foreign markets, were reduced to 
destitution. Land was offered at fourteen and twelve 
years' purchase, and even at those prices found no 
buyers. Many of the principal landowners were 
absentees, and though the rents themselves do not 
seem as a rule to have been high, the middlemen, by 
whom the land was commonly taken, ground the 
wretched peasants under them to powder with their 
exactions. While everything else was thus steadily 
shrinking, the pension list was swelling until it stood 
not far short of ;^ioo,ooo. The additional troops 
recently raised in Ireland had been sent to America, 
and their absence had left the country all but defence- 
less. In 1779, an attempt was made to carry out a 
levy of militia, in which Prostestants only were to be 
enrolled, and an Act passed for the purpose. It failed 



336 THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 

Utterly, for so miserably bankrupt was the condition of 
the Irish Government, that it was found impossible 
to collect money to pay the men, and the scheme in 
consequence had to be given up. 

It proved, however, to be the parent of a really 
'successful one. In the same year a volunteer move- 
ment sprang into sudden existence. Belfast had 
been left empty of troops, and was hourly in fear of 
a French descent, added to which it was harassed by 
the dread of a famous pirate of the period, called 
Paul Jones. Under these circumstances its citizens 
resolved to enrol themselves for their own defence. 
The idea, once started, flew through the country like 
wild-fire. The old fighting spirit sprang to sudden 
life at the cry to arms. After three-quarters of a 
century of torpor all was stir and animation. In 
every direction the gentry were enrolling their tenants, 
the sons of the great houses officering the corps and 
drilling their own retainers. Merchants, peers, mem- 
bers of Parliament all vied with one another, and in a 
few months' time nearly 60,000 men had 'been enrolled. 

Although a good deal alarmed at the rapidity of 
this movement, the Government could not very well 
refuse to let the country arm in its own defence, and 
16,000 stand of arms, which had been brought over 
for the projected militia, were after a while distributed. 
The greatest pride was felt in the completeness and 
perfection of the equipments. Reviews were held, 
and, for once, national sentiment and loyalty seemed 
to have struck hands. 

Hardly, too, were the volunteers enrolled before it 
began to be felt what a power was thus conferred 




JAMES CAULFIELD, EARL OF CHARLEMONT, COMMANDER OF THE 
IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 

{From an etching after a picture by Hogarth. ) 



338 THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 

upon that party which had so long pleaded in vain for 
the relief of Ireland from those commercial disabilities 
under which it still laboured. Although the whole 
tone of the volunteers was loyal, and although their 
principal leader, Lord Charlemont, was a man of the 
utmost tact and moderation, it was none the less 
clear that an appeal backed by 60,000 men in arms 
acquired a weight and momentum which no previous 
Irish appeal had ever even approached. 

In October of the same year Parliament met, and 
an amendment to the address was moved by Grattan, 
demanding a right of free export and import. Then 
Flood rose in his place, still holding office, and pro- 
posed that the more comprehensive words Free Trade 
should be adopted. It was at once agreed to and 
carried unanimously. Next day the whole House of 
Commons went in a body to present the address to 
the Lord-Lieutenant, the volunteers lining the streets 
and presenting arms as they went by. 

The Government were startled. Lord Buckingham- 
shire, the Lord-Lieutenant, wrote to England to say 
that the trade restrictions must be repealed, or he 
would not answer for the consequences. Lord North, 
the Prime Minister, yielded, and a Bill of repeal 
were brought in, allowing Ireland free export and 
import to foreign countries and to the English 
Colonies. When the news reached Dublin, the utmost 
delight and excitement prevailed. Bonfires were lit, 
houses in Dublin illuminated, the volunteers fired 
salvoes of rejoicing, and addresses of gratitude were 
forthwith forwarded to England. 

The next step in the upward progress has been 



LEGISLATIVE INDEPENDENCE. 339 

already partially described in the chapter dealing 
with Grattan. At the meeting of Parliament in 1782, 
the Declaration of Rights proposed by him was 
passed, and urgently pressed upon the consideration 
of the Government. The moment was exceptionally 
favourable. Lord North's Ministry had by this time 
fallen, after probably the most disastrous tenure of 
office that had ever befallen any English adminis- 
tration. America had achieved her independence, 
and England was in no mood for embarking upon 
fresh struggle with another of her dependencies. 
In Ireland the Ulster volunteers had lately met at 
Dungannon, and passed unanimous resolutions in 
favour of Grattan's proposal, and their example had 
been speedily followed all over Ireland. The Whig 
Ministry, now in power, was known to be not unfavour- 
able to the cause which the Irish patriots had at 
heart. A Bill was brought forward and carried, 
revoking the recent Declaratory Acts which bound 
the Irish Parliament, and giving it the right to legis- 
late for itself Poynings' Act was thereupon repealed, 
and a number of independent Acts, as already stated, 
passed by the now emancipated Irish Parliament. 
The legislative independence was an accomplished 
fact. 

The objects of the volunteers' existence was now 
over. The American war was at an end, the inde- 
pendence of the Parliament assured, and it was 
felt therefore, by all moderate men, that it was now 
time for them to disband. Flood, who had now 
again joined the patriotic party, was strongly op- 
posed to this. He pressed forward his motion for 



340 



THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS. 



"simple repeal," and was supported by Lord Bristol^ 
the Bishop of Derry, a scatter-brained prelate, who 
had been bitten by a passion for military glory, and 
would have been perfectly willing to see the whole 
country plunged into bloodshed. A better and more 
reasonable plea on Flood's part was that reform was 
the crying necessity of the hour, and ought to be 
carried while the volunteers were still enrolled, and 
the effect already produced by their presence was 
still undiminished. Grattan also desired reform^ 
but held that the time for carrying it was not 
yet ripe. A vehement debate ensued, and bitter 
recriminations were exchanged. A convention of 
volunteers was at the moment being held in Dublin, 
and Flood endeavoured to make use of their presence 
there to get his Reform. Bill passed. This the House 
regarded as a menace, and after a violent debate his 
Bill was thrown out. There was a moment during which 
it seemed as if the volunteers were about to try the 
question by force of arms. More prudent counsels, 
however, prevailed, and, greatly to their credit, they 
consented a week later to lay down their arms, and 
retire peaceably to their own homes. 



LI. 



DANGER SIGNALS. 



The significant warnings uttered by Flood and 
others against tiie danger of postponing reform until 
the excitement temporarily awakened upon the sub- 
ject had subsided and the volunteers disbanded, 
proved, unfortunately, to be only too well justified. 
Where Flood, however, had erred, had been in failing to 
see that a reform which left three-fourths of the people 
of the country unrepresented, could never be more 
than a reform in name. This error Grattan never 
made. During the next ten or twelve years, his efforts 
were steadily and continually directed to obtaining 
equal political power for all his fellow-countrymen 
alike. Reform was indeed the necessity of the hour. 
The corruption of Parliament was increasing rather 
than diminishing. From 130 to 140 of its members 
were tied by indissoluble knots to the Government, 
and could only vote as by it directed. Most of these 
were the nominees of the borough-owners ; many 
held places or enjoyed pensions terminable at the 
pleasure of the king, and at the smallest sign of in- 
subordination or independence instant pressure was 



342 DANGER SIGNALS. 

brought to bear upon them until they returned to 
their obedience. 

Although free now to import and export from the 
rest of the world no change with regard to Ireland's 
commercial intercourse with Great Britain had as yet 
taken place. In 1785, a number of propositions were 
drawn up by the Dublin Parliament, to enable the 
importation of goods through Great Britain into 
Ireland, or vice versa, without any increase of duty. 
These propositions were agreed to by Pitt, then 
Prime Minister, and were brought forward by him in 
the English House of Commons. Again, however, 
commercial jealousy stepped in. A number of Eng- 
lish towns remonstrated vehemently ; one petition 
despatched to the House alone bearing the signature 
of 80,000 Lancashire manufacturers. "Greater panic," 
it was said at the time, "could not have been expressed 
had an invasion been in question." The result was, 
that a number of modifications were made to the 
propositions, and when returned to Ireland, so pro- 
foundly had they been altered, that the patriotic 
party refused to accept them, and although when the 
division came on, the Government obtained a majority 
it was so small that the Bill was allowed to drop, and 
thus the whole scheme came to nothing. 

Outside Parliament, meanwhile, the country was in 
a very disturbed state. Long before this local riots 
and disturbances had broken out, especially in the 
south. As early as 1762, secret societies, known under 
the generic name of Whiteboys, had inspired terror 
throughout Munster, especially in the counties of 
Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary. These risings, as 




RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE. 

[From an engraving by Jones after Romney. ) 



344 DANGER SIGNALS. 

has been clearly proved by Mr. Lecky, had little, if 
any, connection with either politics or religion. Their 
cause lay, as he shows, on the very surface, in the all 
but unendurable misery in which the great mass of 
the people were sunk. 

Lord Chesterfield, one of the few Lord-Lieutenants 
who had really attempted to understand Ireland, had 
years before spoken in unmistakeable language on this 
point. Subletting was almost universal, three or four 
persons standing often between the landowner and 
the actual occupier, the result being that the condition 
of the latter was one of chronic semi-starvation. So 
little was disloyalty at the root of the matter, that 
in a contemporary letter, written by Robert Fitz- 
gerald, the Knight of Kerry, it is confidently asserted 
that, were a recruiting officer to be sent to the dis- 
trict, the people would gladly flock to the standard 
of the king, although, he significantly adds, "it seems 
to me equally certain that if the enemy effects a land- 
ing within a hundred miles of these people, they will 
most assuredly join them." ^ 

The tithe system was another all but unendurable 
burden, and it was against the tithe proctors that the 
worst of the Whiteboy outrages were committed. 
That these outrages had little directly to say to 
religion is, however, clear, from the fact that the 
tithe system was nearly as much detested by the Pro- 
testant landowners as by their tenants. In the north 
risings of a somewhat similar character had broken 
out chiefly amongst Protestants of the lower classes, 

^ " History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. iv. 
p. 340. 



The ^^pbep of day^' boys. 345 

who gathered themselves into bands under the name 
of " Oak boys " and " Steel boys." The grievances of 
which they complained being, however, for the most 
part after a while repealed, they gradually dispersed, 
and were heard of no more. In the south it was 
otherwise, and the result has been that Whiteboy con- 
spiracies continued, under different names, to be a 
terror to the country, and have so continued down to 
our own day. 

As long as the volunteers remained embodied 
there was an all but complete cessation of these local 
disturbances, but upon their disbandment they broke 
out with renewed force. Many too of the volun- 
teers themselves, who, although disbanded, retained 
their arms, began to fall under new influences, and 
to lose their earlier reputation. " What had originally," 
mGrattan's words, "been the armed property of Ireland, 
was becoming its armed beggary," A violent sectarian 
spirit, too, was beginning to show itself afresh, although 
as yet chiefly amongst the lowest and most igno- 
rant classes, A furious faction war had broken out in 
the North of Ireland, between Protestants and Roman 
Catholics, The former had made an association 
known as the " Peep-of-day boys," to which the latter 
had responded by one called the "Defenders." In 1795 
a regular battle was fought between the two, and the 
" Defenders " were defeated with the loss of many 
lives. The same year saw the institution of Orange 1 
Lodges spring into existence, and spread rapidly over ' 
the north. Amongst the more educated classes a 
strongly revolutionary feeling was beginning to spread, 
especially in Belfast. The passionate sympathy of 



346 DANGER SIGNALS. 

the Presbyterians for America had awakened a 
vehemently republican spirit, and the rising tide 
of revolution in France, found a loudly reverberating 
echo in Ireland, especially amongst the younger men. 
In 1791 in Belfast, the well-known "Society of 
United Irishmen " came into existence and its 
leaders were eager to combine this democratic 
movement in the north with the recently recon- 
structed Roman Catholic committee in Dublin. All 
these, it is plain, were elements of danger which 
required careful watching. The one hope, the one 
necessity, as all who were not blinded by passion or 
prejudice saw plainly, lay in a reformed Parliament- 
one which would represent, no longer a section, but the 
whole community. To combine to procure this, and 
to sink all religious differences in the common weal, 
was the earnest desire of all who genuinely cared for 
their country, whether within or without the Parlia- 
ment. Of this programme, the members even of 
the United Irishmen were, in the first instance, 
ardent exponents, and their demands, ostensibly 
at least, extended no further. In the words of the 
oath administered to new members, they desired to for- 
ward " an identity of interests, a communion of rights, 
and a union amongst Irishmen of all religious per- 
suasions, without which every reform in Parliament 
must be partial, not national, inadequate to the wants, 
delusive to the wishes, and insufficient for the freedom 
and happiness of the country." 




LII. 

THE FITZWILLTAM DISAPPOINTMENT. 

The eagerness shown at this time by the principal 
Irish Protestants to give full emancipation to their 
Roman Catholic countrymen is eminently creditable to 
them, and stands in strong relief to the bitterness on 
both sides, both in earlier and latter times. By 1792 
there seems to have been something almost like unan- 
imity on the subject. What reads strangest perhaps 
to our ears, 600 Belfast Protestant householders warmly 
pressed the motion on the Government. In a work, 
published six years earlier, Lord Sheffield, though him- 
self opposed to emancipation, puts this unanimity in 
unmistakable words. " It is curious," he says, " to 
observe one-fifth or one-sixth of a nation in possession 
of all the power and property of the country, eager to 
communicate that power to the remaining four-fifths, 
which would, in effect, entirely transfer it from them- 
selves." " 

The generation to which Flood, Lucas, and Lord 
Charlmont had belonged, and who were almost to a 
man opposed to emancipation, was fast passing away, 
and amongst the more independent men of the younger 
generation there were few who had not been won over 




("A man of importance.") 

THE EARL OF MOIRA. 
By Gillray. 



PITT AND EMANCIPATION. 349 

to Grattan's view of the matter. In England, too, cir- 
cumstances were beginning to push many, even of those 
hitherto bitterly hostile to concession, in the same 
direction. The growing terror of the French Revolu- 
tion had loosened the bonds of the party, and the 
hatred which existed between the Jacobins and the 
Catholic clerical party, inclined the Government to 
extend the olive branch to the latter in hopes of 
thereby securing their support. Pitt was personally 
friendly to emancipation, and in December, 1792, a 
deputation of five delegates from the Catholic con- 
vention in Dublin was graciously received by the 
king himself, and returned under the impression that 
all religious disabilities were forthwith to be abolished. 
Next month, January, 1793, at the meeting of the 
Irish Parliament, a Bill was brought in giving the 
right of voting to all Catholic forty-shilling freeholders, 
and throwing open also to Catholics the municipal 
franchise in the towns. Although vehemently opposed 
by the Ascendency, this Bill, being supported by the 
Opposition, passed easily and received the royal 
assent upon April 9th. 

It was believed to be only an instalment of full and 
free emancipation soon to follow. In 1794, several 
of the more moderate Whigs, including Edmund 
Burke and Lord Fitzwilliam, left Fox, and joined 
Pitt. One of the objects of the Whig members of 
this new coalition was the admission of Irish Roman 
Catholics to equal rights with their. Protestant fellow- 
country men. To this Pitt at first demurred, but in 
the end agreed to grant it subject to certain stipu- 
lations, and Lord Fitzwilliam was accordingly 



350 THE FITZWILLIAM DISAPPOINTMENT. 

appointed Lord-Lieutenant, and arrived in Ireland 
in January, 1795. 

His appointment awakened the most vehement and 
widely expressed delight. He was known to be 
a warm supporter of emancipation. He was a 
personal friend of Grattan's, and a man in whom 
all who had the interests of their country at heart 
believed that they could confide. He had himself 
declared emphatically that he would "never have 
taken office unless the Roman Catholics were to be 
relieved from every disqualification." He was received 
in Dublin with enthusiastic rejoicings. Loyal addresses 
from Roman Catholics poured in from every part of 
Ireland. Large supplies were joyfully voted by the 
Irish Parliament, and, although he reported in a letter 
to the Duke of Portland that the disaffection amongst 
the lower orders was very great, on the other hand the 
better educated of the Roman Catholics were loyal to a 
man. For the moment the party of disorder seemed 
indeed to have vanished. Grattan, though he refused 
to take office, gave all the great weight of his support 
to the Government, and obtained leave to bring in an 
Emancipation Bill with hardly a dissentient voice. 
The extreme Jacobine party ceased apparently for 
the moment to have any weight in the country. Revo- 
lution seemed to be scotched, and the dangers into 
which Ireland had been seen awhile before to be 
-rapidly hastening, appeared to have passed away. 

Suddenly all was changed. On February 12th, 
leave to brino- in a Bill for the admission of Roman 
Catholics to Parliament was moved by Grattan. On 
February 9th, a letter reached Lord Fitzwilliam from 



RECALL OF FITZWILLIAM. 35 1 

Pitt, which showed that some changes had taken place 
in the intentions of the Government, but no suspicion 
of the extent of those changes was as yet entertained. 
On February 23rd, however, the Duke of Portland 
wrote, " by the king's command," authorizing Lord 
Fitzwilliam to resign. Tlie law officers and other 
officials who had been displaced were thereupon re- 
stored to their former places. G rattan's Bill was 
hopelessly lost, and all the elements of rebellion and 
disaffection at once began to seethe and ferment 
again. 

What strikes one most in studying these proceed- 
ings is the curious folly of the whole affair! Why was 
a harbinger of peace sent if only to be immediately 
recalled .? Why were the hopes of the Roman Catho- 
lics, of the whole country in fact, raised to the highest 
pitch of expectation, if only that they might be dashed 
to the ground ? Pitt no doubt had a very difficult 
part to play. George III. was all his life vehemently 
opposed to the admission of Roman Catholics to Par- 
liament. Two of the officials whom Fitzwilliam 
had dismissed, Cooke, the Under Secretary of State 
and Beresford, the Chief Commissioner of Customs, 
were men of no little influence, and Beresford, 
immediately upon his arrival in England had had a 
personal interview with the king. That Pitt knew how 
critical was the situation in Ireland is certain. He was 
not, however, prepared to resign office, and short of 
that step it was impossible to bring sufficient pressure 
to bear upon the king's obstinacy. His own preference 
ran strongly towards a Union of the two countries, 
and with this end in view, he is often accused of 



352 THE FITZWILLIAM DISAPPOINTMENT. 

having been cynically indifferent as to what disasters 
and horrors Ireland might be destined to wade 
through to that consummation." This it is difficult to 
conceive ; nevertheless, there can be no doubt that 
the rising of four years later dated from this decision, 
and was almost as directly due to it as if the latter 
had been planned with that object. 

From this point the stream runs darkly and steadily 
to the end. Lord Fitzwilliam's departure was regarded 
by Protestants and Catholics alike as a national 
calamity. In Dublin shops were shut ; people put on 
mourning, and his carriage was followed to the boat 
by lamenting crowds. Grattan's Bill was of course 
lost, and the exasperation of the Catholics rendered 
tenfold by the disappointment. " The demon of dark- 
ness," it was said, " could not have done more mischief 
had he come from hell to throw a fire-brand amongst 
the people." 

Henceforward the Irish Parliament drops away into 
all but complete insignificance. After two or three 
abortive efforts to again bring forward reform, Grattan 
gave up the hopeless attempt, and retired broken- 
hearted from public life. The " United Irishmen," in 
the first instance an open political body, inaugurated 
and chiefly supported by Protestants, now rapidly 
changed its character. Its leaders were now all 
at heart republicans, and thoroughly impregnated 
with the leaven of the French Revolution. It was 
suppressed and apparently broken up by the Govern- 
ment in 1795, but was almost immediately afterwards 
reconstructed and re-organized upon an immense 
scale. Every member was bound to take an oath 



THE " UNITED IRISHMEN. 



353 



of secrecy, and its avowed object had become the 
erection by force of a republican form of Government 
in Ireland. The rebellion was bound to come now, 
and only accident could decide how soon. 










RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE. 
(From a sketch from life.) 




LIII. 

'ninety-eight. 

It was not long delayed. The Society of United 
Irishmen had now grown to be Httle more than a mere 
nest of Jacobinism, filled with all the turbulent and 
disaffected elements afloat in the whole country. Of 
this society VVplfe Tone was the creator, guide, and 
moving spirit. Any one who wishes to understand the 
movement rather as it originally took shape than in 
the form which it assumed when accident had de- 
prived it of all its leaders, should carefully study his 
autobiography. As he reads its transparent pages, 
brimful of all the foolish, generous enthusiasms of the 
day, he will find it not a little hard, I think, to avoid 
some amount of sympathy with the man, however 
much he may, and probably will, reprobate the cause 
which he had so at heart. 

Amongst the other leaders of the rising were Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald, a brother of the Duke of Leinster, 
Arthur O'Connor, a nephew of Lord Longueville, 
Thomas Addis Emmett, elder brother of the better 
known Robert Emmett — whose attempted rebellion in 
1803, was a sort of postscript to this earlier one — and 
the two Sheare brothers. Compared to Wolfe Tone, 



AID FROM FRANCS. 355 

however, all these were mere amateurs in insurrection, 
and pale and shadowy dabblers in rebellion. Lord 
Edward was an amiable warm-hearted visionary, 
high-minded and gallant, but without much ballast, and 
to a great degree under the guidance of others. The 
mainspring of the whole movement, as has been seen, 
was Protestant and Northern, and now that all hope 
of constitutional reform was gone, it was resolved to 
appeal openly to force and to call in the aid of the 
enemies of England to assist in the coming struggle. 
Insane as the idea appears, looked back at from 
this distance, it evidently was not viewed in the same 
light by those at hand. England and France, it must 
be remembered, were at fierce war, and a descent 
upon the Irish coast was then, as afterwards by 
Napoleon, regarded as a natural and obvious part of 
the aggressive policy of the latter. In the summer of 
1796 Lord Edward Fitzgerald went to Paris to open 
negotiations with the French Directory, and there 
met Wolfe Tone, who had been induced some time 
before to leave Ireland in order to avoid arrest. Lord 
Edward's Orleanist connection proving a bar to his 
negotiations, he left Paris, and the whole of the 
arrangements devolved into the latter's hand. He 
so fired Carnot, one of the Directory, and still more 
General Hoche, with a belief of the feasibility of 
his scheme of descent, that, in December of the 
same year a French fleet of forty-three vessels con- 
taining fifteen thousand troops were actually de- 
spatched under Hoche's command, Wolfe Tone being 
on board of one of them, which vessels, slipping past 
the English fleet in the Channel, bore down upon 







THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. 

{From a lithog)-afh after a sketch by Hiillmandel.) 



fJOCHE RETURNS TO FRANCE. 357 

the Irish coast, and suddenly appeared off Cape 
Clear. 

All Ireland was thrown into the wildest panic. 
There were only a small body of troops in the south 
and not a war-ship upon the coast. The peasantry 
of the district, it is true, showed no disposition to rise, 
but for all that had the French landed, nothing could 
have hindered them from marching upon the capital. 
But — " those ancient and unsubsidised allies of Eng- 
land upon which English ministers depend as much for 
saving kingdoms as washerwomen for drying clothes," 
— the winds again stood true to their ancient alliance. 
The vessel with Hoche on board got separated from the 
rest of the fleet, and while the troops were waiting for 
him to arrive a violent gale accompanied with snow 
suddenly sprang up. The fleet moved on to Bear 
Island, and tried to anchor there, but the storm in- 
creased, the shelter was insufficient, the vessels 
dragged their anchors, were driven out to sea and 
forced to return to Brest. The ship containing 
Hoche had before this been forced to put back to 
France, and so ended the first and by far the most 
formidable of the perils which threatened England 
under this new combination. 

One very unfortunate result of the narrowness 
of this escape was that the Irish Executive — stung 
by the sense of their own supineness, and utterly 
scared by the recent peril — threw themselves into 
the most violent and arbitrary measures of repression. 
The Habeas Corpus Act had already been suspended, 
and now martial law was proclaimed in five of the 
northern counties at once. The committee of the 



35^ ''NINETY-EIGHT. 

United Irishmen was seized, the office of their organ 
The Northej'ji Star destroyed, and an immense 
number of people hurried into gaol. What was 
much more serious throughout the proclaimed dis- 
tricts, the soldiery and militia regiments which had 
been brought over from England were kept under no 
discipline, but were allowed to ill-use the population 
almost at their own discretion. Gross excesses were 
committed, whole villages being in some instances 
plundered and the people turned adrift, while half 
hangings, floggings and picketings, were freely re- 
sorted to to extort confessions of concealed arms. 

Against these measures — so calculated to precipi- 
tate a rising, and by which the innocent and well-dis- 
posed suffered no less than the guilty — Grattan, 
Ponsonby, and other members of the Opposition 
protested vehemently. They also drew up and laid 
before the House a Bill of reform which, if passed, 
would, they pledged themselves, effectually allay the 
agitation and content all but the most irreconcilable. 
Their efforts, however, were utterly vain. Many of 
the members of the House of Commons were them- 
selves in a state of panic, and therefore impervious 
to argument. The . motion was defeated by an 
enormous majority, a general election was close at 
hand, and feeling the fruitlessness of further struggle 
Grattan, as already stated, refused to offer himself 
for re-election, and retired despairingly from the 
scene. 

The commander-in-chief. Lord Carhampton and 
his subordinate General Lake were the two men 
directly responsible for the misconduct of the troops 



FRESH CONSPIRACIES. 359 

in Ireland. So disgraceful had become the license 
allowed that loud complaints were made in both the 
English Houses of Parliament, in consequence of 
which Lord Carhampton was recalled and Sir Ralph 
Abercromby sent in his place. He more than en- 
dorsed the worst of the accounts which had been 
forwarded. " Every cruelty that could be committed 
by Cossacks or Calmucks," he states, " has been com- 
mitted here." "The manner in which the troops have 
been employed would ruin," he adds, " the best in 
Europe." He at once set himself to change the system, 
to keep the garrison in the principal towns, and to 
forbid the troops acting except under the immediate 
direction of a magistrate. The Irish Executive 
however was in no mood to submit to these prudent 
restrictions. Angry disputes broke out. Lord 
Camden, the Lord-Lieutenant, vacillated from side 
to side, and the end was that in April, 1797, Sir 
Ralph Abercromby indignantly resigned the com- 
mand, which then fell into General Lake's hands, 
and matters again went on as before. 

Meanwhile the failure of the French descent under 
Hoche, and the defeat of the Dutch fleet at the battle 
of Camperdown in the autumn of 1797, had determined 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the other chiefs of 
the executive committee to attempt an independent 
rising. Wolfe Tone was still in France, eagerly 
endeavouring to bring about a fresh expedition, so 
that their councils had not even the advantage of 
his guidance. The Government had full information 
of all their proceedings, being kept well informed 
by spies, several of whom were actually enrolled in 




LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD. 

[After a picture by Hamilton.) 



CAPTURE AND DEATH OF FITZGERALD. 361 

the association. In March, 1798, a sudden descent was 
made upon the executive committee, which had met 
at the house of a man called Bond, and a number 
of delegates and several leaders arrested. Lord 
Edward, however, received warning and went into 
concealment, and it was while in hiding that he 
hastily concerted a scheme for a general rising, which 
was now definitely fixed to take place upon the 24th 
of May. 

Only a few days before this date his hiding-place 
was betrayed to the Government by a man named 
Magan. A guard of soldiers was sent to arrest him, 
and a desperate struggle took place, in the course of 
which the captain of the guard was fatally stabbed, 
while Lord Edward himself received a bullet on the 
shoulder from the effects of which he shortly after- 
wards died in goal. Within a day or two of his arrest 
all the other leaders in Dublin were also seized and 
thrown into prison. 

The whole of the executive committee were thus 
removed at one blow, and the conspiracy left with- 
out head. In estimating the hideous character finally 
assumed by the rising this fact must never be 
forgotten. The sickening deeds committed while it 
was at its height were committed by a mass of 
ignorant men, maddened by months of oppression, and 
deprived of their leaders at the very moment they 
most required their control. 

In the meantime the 24th of May had come, 
and the rising had broken out. The non-arrival 
of the daily mail-coaches was to be the signal, 
and these were stopped and burnt by the insur- 



y 



362 'ninety-eight. 

gents in four different directions at once. In 
Kildare and Meath scattered parties of soldiers and 
yeomanry were attacked and killed, and at Pros- 
perous the barracks were set on fire, and the troops 
quartered in it all burnt or piked. In Dublin 
prompt measures had been taken, and the more loyal 
citizens had enrolled themselves for their own de- 
fence, so that no rising took place there, the result 
being that the outlying insurgents found themselves 
isolated. In the north especially, where the whole 
movement had taken its rise, and where the revo- 
lutionists had long been organized, the actual rising 
was thus of very trifling importance, and the whole 
thing was easily stamped out within a week. 

It was very different in Wexford. Here from the 
beginning the rising had assumed a religious shape, 
and was conducted with indescribable barbarity. 
Yeomanry corps and bodies of militia had been 
quartered in the county for months, and many acts 
of tyranny had been committed. These were 
now hideously avenged. Several thousand men and 
women, armed chiefly with pikes and scythes, collected 
together on the hill of Oulart under the guidance of 
a priest named Father John Murphy, They were 
attacked by a small party of militia from Wexford, 
but defeating them, burst into Ferns, where they burnt 
the bishop^s palace, then hastened on to Enniscorthy, 
which they took possession of, and a few days after- 
wards appeared before the town of Wexford. 

Here resistance was at first offered them by Colonel 
Maxwell, who was in command of the militia regi- 
ments. Nearly all the Roman Catholics, however 



MASSACRE OF PROTESTANTS. 363 

under his orders deserted, the rest grew disorganized 
and fled, and the end was that the mihtia departed and 
the rebels took possession triumphantly of the town. 
It at once became the scene of horrible outrages. 
Houses were plundered ; many of the Protestant 
citizens murdered ; others dragged from their homes, 
and cruelly maltreated. Bagenal Harvey, a United 
Irishman and a Protestant, who had been imprisoned 
at Wexford by the Government, was released and 
elected general of the rebels. He found himself, 
however, utterly unable to control them. A camp had 
been formed upon Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy, and 
from it as a centre the whole district was overrun, with 
the exception of New Ross, where most of the available 
troops had been concentrated. The wretched Pro- 
testants, kept prisoners on Vinegar Hill, were daily 
taken out in batches, and slaughtered in cold blood, 
while at Scullabogue, after an unsuccessful attempt 
on the part of the rebels to take New Ross, the most 
frightful episode of the whole rising occurred ; a barn 
containing over a hundred and eighty Protestant 
loyalists collected from the country round being set 
on fire, and all of them perishing in the flames. 

In the meanwhile troops were rapidly arriving from 
Dublin. Arklow and New Ross had defended them- 
selves gallantly, and the rebels had fallen back from 
them repulsed. Vinegar Hill was attacked upon June 
2 1st by General Lake, and after a struggle the rebels 
fled precipitately, and were slaughtered in great 
numbers. The day before this Father Roche and the 
rebels under him were met outside Wexford and also 
put to flight after hard fighting. Inside the town a 



364 'NINETY-EIGHT. 

horrible butchery was the same day perpetrated by 
a body of ruffians upon over ninety Protestant 
prisoners, who were- slaughtered with great cruelty 
upon the bridge leading to New Ross, and only the 
passionate intervention of a priest named Corrin 
hindered the deaths of many more. 

With the recapture of Wexford and Vinegar Hill 
the struggle ended. Such of the rebels as had escaped 
the infuriated soldiery fled to hide themselves in 
Wicklow and elsewhere. Father Michael Murphy — 
believed by his followers to be bullet proof — had been 
already killed during the attack on Arklow. Father 
Roche was hung by Lake's order over the bridge at 
Wexford, the scene of the late massacres. So also 
was the unfortunate Bagenal Harvey, the victim 
rather than the accomplice of the crimes of others. 
Father John Murphy was caught and hung at Tallow, 
as were also other priests in different parts of the 
^/country. The rising had been just long enough, and 
just formidable enough, to awaken the utmost terror 
and the most furious thirst for vengeance, yet not 
formidable enough to win respect for itself from a 
military point of view. As a result the retribution 
exacted jvas terrible ; the scenes of violence which 
followed being upon a scale which went far to cause 
even the excesses committed by the rebels themselves 
I to pale into insignificance. 

Two final incidents, either of which a few months 
earlier might have produced formidable results, brings 
the dismal story to an end. In August, just after the 
rising had been definitely stamped out, General 
Humbert with a little over a thousand French troops 



DEATH OF WOLFE TONE. 365 

under his command landed at Killala, where he was 
joined, if hardly reinforced, by a wild mob of unarmed 
peasants. From Killala he advanced to Ballina, de- 
feated General Lake, who was sent against him, and 
moved on to Sligo. Shortly afterwards, however, he 
found himself, after crossing the Shannon, confronted 
with an overwhelming force under Lord Cornwallis, 
who had recently succeeded Lord Camden, and 
held double offices of Lord-Lieutenant and Com- 
mander-in-chief Yielding to the inevitable, Humbert 
surrendered at discretion, and he and his men were 
received with due courtesy as prisoners of war. The 
account given by the bishop of Killala who was kept 
prisoner while that town was occupied by the French, 
will be found to be extremely well worth reading. 

The last scene of the drama brings Wolfe Tone 
appropriately back upon the gloomy stage. When 
General Humbert sailed for Killala a much larger 
French force under General Hardi had remained behind 
at Brest. In September this second detachment sailed, 
Wolfe Tone being on board the principal vessel called 
the HocJie. Outside Lough Swilly they were overtaken 
by an English squadron, and a desperate struggle 
ensued. The smaller French vessels escaped, but the 
Hoche was so riddled with shot and shell as to be 
forced to surrender, and was towed by the victors into 
Lough Swilly. Here the French officers including 
Wolfe Tone were hospitably entertained at dinner by 
Lord Cavan. While at table Tone was recognized by 
an old school friend, and was at once arrested and 
sent prisoner to Dublin. A court martial followed, 
and despite his own plea to be regarded as a French 



366 



^NINETY-EIGHT. 



ofificer, and therefore, if condemned shot, he was 
sentenced to be hung. In despair he tried to kill 
himself in prison, but the wound though fatal, was 
not immediately so, and the sentence would have 
'been carried rigorously out but for the intervention 
of Curran, who moved for a writ of Habeas Corpus 
on the plea that as the courts of law were then sitting 
in Dublin, a court martial had no jurisdiction. The 
plea was a mere technicality, but it produced the re- 
quired delay, and Wolfe Tone died quietly in prison. 




LIV. 



THE UNION. 



By the month of August the last sparks of the 
rebeUion of '98 had been quenched. Martial law- 
prevailed everywhere. The terror which the rising 
had awakened was finding its vent in violent actions 
and still more violent language, and Lord Cornwallis, 
the Lord-Lieutenant, was one of the few who ven- 
tured to say that enough blood had been shed, and 
that the hour for mercy had struck. The ferocity 
with which the end of the contest had been waged 
by the rebels had aroused a feeling of corresponding, 
or more than corresponding ferocity on the other 
side. That men who a few months before had trembled 
to see all whom they loved best exposed to the 
savagery of such a mob as had set fire to the barn at 
Scullaboge, or murdered the prisonere at Rossbridge, 
should have been filled with a fury which carried 
them far beyond the necessities of the case is hardly 
perhaps surprising, but the result was to hurry them 
in many instances into cruelties fully as great as those 
which they intended to avenge. 

It was at this moment, while the country was still 
racked and bleeding at every pore from the effects of 



368 THE UNION. 

the recent struggle, that Pitt resolved to carry out 
his long projected plan of a legislative Union. Public 
opinion in Ireland may be said for the moment to 
have been dead. The mass of the people were lying 
.crushed and exhausted by their own violence. Fresh 
from a contest waged with gun and pike and torch, 
a mere constitutional struggle had probably little or 
no interest for them. The popular enthusiasm which 
the earlier triumphs of the Irish Parliament had 
awakened had all but utterly died away in a fratri- 
cidal struggle. To the leaders of the late rebellion 
it was an object of open contempt, if not indeed ot 
actual aversion. Wolfe Tone, the ablest man by far 
on the revolutionary side, had never wearied of pour- 
ing contempt upon it. In his eyes it was the great 
opponent of progress, the venal slave which had not 
only destroyed the chances of a successful outbreak, 
and whose endeavour had been to keep Ireland under 
the heel of her tyrant. To him the opposition as 
little deserved the name of patriot as the veriest 
place-men. Grattan, throughout his long and noble 
career had been as steadily loyal, and as steadily 
averse to any appeal to force as any paid creature 
of the Government. To men who only wanted to 
break loose from England altogether, to found an 
Irish republic as closely as possible upon the model 
then offered for their imitation in France, anything 
like mere constitutional opposition seemed not con- 
temptible merely, but ridiculous. 

This explains how it was that no great burst of 
public feeling — such as a few years before would have 
made the project of a Union all but impossible — 






\.S 



•Jlv 



■iJlii ^J'lKi III 



llil ,ii! 




370 THE UNION, 

was now to be feared. Pitt had for a long time 
firmly fixed his mind upon it as the object to be 
attained. He honestly believed the existing state 
of things to be fraught with peril for England, 
and to have in it formidable elements of latent 
danger, which a war or any other sudden emergency 
might bring to the front. He knew too, undoubtedly, 
that no opportunity equally favourable for carrying 
his point was ever likely to recur again. 

He accordingly now proceeded to take his measures 
for securing it with the utmost care, and the most 
anxious selection of agents. Two opposite sets of in- 
ducements were to be brought to bear upon the two 
contending factions. To the Protestants, fresh from 
their terrible struggle, the thought of a closer union 
with England seemed to promise greater protection 
in case of any similar outbreak. Irish churchmen 
too had been always haunted with a dread sooner or 
later of the disestablishment of their Church, and a 
union, it was argued, with a country where Protestants 
constituted the vast majority of the population, would 
render that peril for ever impossible, and it was 
agreed that a special clause to that effect should 
be incorporated in the Act of Union. To the 
Roman Catholics a totally different set of induce- 
ments were brought forward. The great bait was 
Emancipation, which they were privately assured 
would never be carried as long as the Irish Parliament 
existed, but might safely be conceded once it had 
ceased to exist. No actual pledge was made to that 
effect, but there was unquestionably an understanding, 
and Lord Castlereagh,the Chief Secretary, was untiring 



THE UNION POSTPONED. 371 

in his efforts to lull them into security upon this 
point. 

So much discrepancy of statement still prevails upon 
the whole subject that it is extremely difficult to 
ascertain what really was the prevailing sentiment in 
Ireland at this time for and against the project of a 
Union. In Ulster the proposal seems certainly to 
have been all but unanimously condemned, and in 
Dublin, too, the opposition to it was vehement and 
unhesitating, but in other parts of the country it 
seems to have met with some support, especially 
in Galway and Tipperary. In January, 1799, Par- 
liament met, and the proposal was brought forward in 
a speech from the throne, but encountered a violent 
opposition from all the remaining members of the 
patriotic party. Grattan, who had returned to Parlia- 
ment for the express purpose, eloquently defended the 
rights of the Irish legislature, and was supported by 
Sir John Parneil, by Plunkett, and by all the more 
prominent members of the opposition. After a 
debate which lasted nearly twenty-two hours, a 
division was called, and the numbers were found to 
be equal ; another fierce struggle, and this time the 
Government were beaten by five ; thus the proposal 
for the time was lost. 

Not for long though. Pitt had thoroughly made 
up his mind, and was bent on carrying his point to a 
successful issue. Most of those v/ho had voted against 
the Union were dismissed from office, and after the 
prorogation of Parliament, the Government set to 
work with a determination to secure a majority before 
the next session. There was only one means of 



372 THE UNION. 

efifecting this, and that means was now employed. 
Eighty- five boroughs — all of which were in the hands 
of private owners — would lose their members if a 
Union were passed, and all these, accordingly, it was 
resolved to compensate, and no less than a million 
and a quarter of money was actually advanced for 
that purpose, while for owners less easily reached by 
this means peerages, baronetcies, steps in the peerage, 
and similar inducements, were understood to be 
forthcoming as an equivalent. 

It is precisely at this point that controversy grows 
hottest, and where it becomes hardest, therefore, to 
see a clear way between contending statements, 
which seem to meet and thrust one another, as it 
were at the very sword's point. That the sale of 
parliamentary seats — so shocking to our reformed 
eyes — was not regarded in jthe same light at the date 
of the Irish Union is certain, and in questions of ethics 
contemporary judgment is the first and most impor- 
tant point to be considered. The sale of a borough 
carried with it no more necessary reprobation then 
than did the sale of a man, say, in Jamaica or Virginia. 
Boroughs were bought and sold in open market? 
and many of them had a recognized price, so much 
for the current session, so much more if in perpetuity. 
We must try clearly to realize this, in order to 
approach the matter fairly, and, as far as possible, 
to put the ugly word " bribery " out of our thoughts, 
at all events not allow it to carry them beyond the 
actual facts of the case. Pitt, there is no question, 
had resolved to carry his point, but we have no right 
to assume that he wished to carry it by corrupt 



A MATTER FOR CONTROVERSY. 373 

means, and the fact that those who opposed it were 
to be indemnified for their seats no less than those 
who promoted it, makes so far strongly in his favour. 

On the other hand, the impression which any given 
transaction leaves upon the generation which has 
actually witnessed it is rarel)' entirely wrong, and that 
the impression produced by the carrying of the Irish 
Union — almost equally upon its friends and its foes 
— was, to put it mildly, unfavourable, few will be dis- 
posed to deny. Over and above this general testi- 
mony, we have the actual letters of those who were 
mainly instrumental in carrying it into effect, and it 
is difficult to read those of Lord Cornwallis without 
perceiving that he at least regarded the task as a 
repellent one, and one which as an honourable man 
he would gladly have evaded had evasion been pos- 
sible. It is true that Lord Castlereagh, who was 
associated intimately with him in the enterprise, 
shows no such reluctance, but then the relative cha- 
racters of the two men prevent that circumstance from 
having quite as much weight as it otherwise might. 

The fact is that the whole affair is still enveloped 
in such a hedge of cross-statement and controversy, 
that in spite of having been eighty-seven years before 
the world, it still needs careful elucidation, and' the 
last word upon it has certainly not yet been written. 
To attempt anything of the sort here would be 
absurd, so we must be content with simply following 
the actual course of events. 

The whole of that memorable summer was spent 
carrying out the orders of the Prime Minister. The 
Lord-Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary travelled in 




MARQUIS -eeR^fWALLIS. 

[Engraved by yames Stow from an original drawing by S. D. Koster.) 



THE UNION CARRIED. 375 

person round Ireland to assist in the canvass, and 
before the Parliament met again the following January, 
they were able to report that they had succeeded. 
Grattan had been suffering from a severe illness, and 
was still almost too ill to appear. He came, however, 
and his wonted eloquence rose to the occasion. He 
appealed in the most moving and passionate terms 
against the destruction of the Parliament. Even then 
there were some who hoped against hope that it might 
be saved. At the division, however, the Government 
majority was found to be overwhelming, only a 
hundred members voting against it. The assent of 
the Upper House had already been secured, and 
was known all along to be a mere formality. And 
so the Union was carried. 

How far it was or was not desirable at the time ; 
how far it was or was not indispensable to the safety 
of both countries ; to what extent Pitt and in a less 
degree those who acted under him were or were not 
blameworthy in the matter — are points which may be 
almost indefinitely discussed. They were not as 
blameworthy as they are often assumed to have 
been, but it is difficult honestly to see how we are to 
exonerate them from blame altogether. The theory 
that the end justifies the means has never been a 
favourite with honourable men, and some at least 
of the means by which the Union of Great Britain 
and Ireland was carried would have left fatal stains 
upon the noblest cause that ever yet inspired the breast 
of man. Early in the last century Ireland through her 
Parliament had herself proposed a legislative union, 
and England had rejected her appeal. Had it been 



376 



THE UNION. 



accomplished then, or had it been brought about in 
the same fashion as that which produced the Union 
between Scotland and England, it might have been 
accepted as a boon instead of a curse, and in any case 
could have left no such bitter and rankling memories 
behind it. It is quite possible, and perfectly logical, 
for a man to hold that a Union between the two 
countries was and is to the advantage of both, and yet 
to desire that when it did come about it had been 
accomplished in almost any other conceivable way. 




CRYPT OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL. 




LV. 

O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

Another century had now dawned, and, like the 
last, it was heralded in with great changes in Ireland. 
More than change, however, is needed for improve- 
ment. " Phis qa change plus cest la mime chose " has 
been said of French politics, and is at least equally 
applicable to Irish ones. The Union had not brought 
union, and the years which followed it were certainly 
no great improvement on those that had preceded 
them. The growth of political institution is not so 
naturally stable in Ireland that the lopping down of 
one such institution tended to make the rest stronger 
or more healthy. It was a tree that had undoubtedly 
serious flaws, and whose growing had not been as 
perfect as it might have been, but it had admittedly 
borne some good fruit, and might have borne better 
had it been left alone. Anyhow it was gone, and the 
history of the next twenty-nine years is a confused 
and distracting medley of petty outbreaks — that in 
1803 of which Robert Emmett was the leader being 
the most important — and of recurrent acts of repres- 
sion, out of the monotonous welter of which one great 







ROBERT EMMET. 

{FroJii a stipple engravitig by J. Heath.) 



THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 379 

figure presently rises like a colossus, till it comes to 
dominate the whole scene. 

At a meeting of Catholic citizens in Dublin in 1800 
to protest against the Union, Daniel O'Connell, then a 
young barrister of twenty-six, made his first public 
speech, and from that time forward his place as a 
leader may be said to have been fixed. A Catholic 
Association had some years earlier been formed, and 
of this he soon became the chief figure, and his efforts 
were continually directed towards the relief of his co- 
religionists. In 18 1 5 a proposal had been made by 
the Government that Catholic Emancipation should 
be granted, coupled with a power of veto in the 
appointment of Catholic bishops, and to this com- 
promise a considerable Catholic party was favourable. 
Richard Lalor Shell — next to O'Connell by far the 
ablest and most eloquent advocate for Emancipation 
— supported it ; even the Pope, Pius VII., declared that 
he felt " no hesitation in conceding it." O'Connell, 
however, opposed it vehemently, and so worked up 
public opinion against it that in the end he carried 
his point, and it was agreed that no proposal should 
be accepted which permitted any external interference 
with the Catholic Church of Ireland. This was his 
first decisive triumph. 

O'Connell's buoyancy and indomitable energy im- 
parted much of its own impulse to a party more 
dead and dispirited than we who have only known it 
in its resuscitated and decidedly dominant state can 
easily conceive. In 1823 a new Irish Catholic As- 
sociation was set on foot, of which he was the visible 
life and soul. It is curious to note how little enthu- 



380 O' CONN ELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

siasm its proceedings seem at first to have awakened, 
especially amongst the priesthood. At a meeting on 
February 4, 1824, the necessary quorum of ten 
members running short, it was only supplied by 
O'Connell rushing downstairs to the book-shop over 
'which the association met, and actually forcing up- 
stairs two priests whom he accidently found there, 
and it was by the aid of these unwilling coadjutors 
that the famous motion for establishing the "Catholic 
rent" was carried. No sooner was this fund established, 
however, than it was largely subscribed for all over the 
country, and in a wonderfully short time the whole 
priesthood of Ireland were actively engaged in its 
service. The sums collected were to be spent in 
parliamentary expenses, in the defence of Catholics, 
and in the cost of meetings. In 1825 the association 
was suppressed by Act of Parliament, but was hardly 
dead before O'Connell set about the formation of 
another, and the defeat of the Beresfords at the 
election for Waterford in 1826 was one of the first 
symptoms which showed where the rising tide was 
mounting to. 

It was followed two years later by a much more 
important victory. Although Catholics were ex- 
cluded from sitting in Parliament the law which forbade 
their doing so did not preclude their being returned 
as members, and it had long been thought that policy 
required the election of some Catholic, if only that the 
whole anomaly of the situation might be brought 
into the full light of day. An opportunity soon 
occurred. Mr. Fitzgerald, the member for Clare, 
having accepted office as President of the Board of 



THE CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL. 381 

Trade, he was obliged to appeal to his constituents 
for re-election, and O'Connell caught at the sugges- 
tion made to him of contesting the seat. His pur- 
pose had hardly been announced before it created the 
wildest excitement all over Ireland. The Catholic 
Association at once granted ;^5,000 towards the 
expenses, and iJ"9,ooo more was easily raised within a 
week. In every parish in Clare the priests addressed 
their parishioners from the altar, appealing to them 
to be true to the representative of their faith. After 
a vehement contest, victory declared itself unhesi- 
tatingly for O'Connell, who was found to have 
polled more than a thousand votes over his an- 
tagonist. 

The months which followed were months of the 
wildest and most feverish excitement all over Ireland. 
O'Connell, though he used his " frank," did not 
present himself at the House of Commons. He 
devoted his whole time to organizing his co-religion- 
ists, who by this time may be said to have formed one 
vast army under his direction. In every parish the 
priests were his lieutenants. Monster meetings were 
held in all directions, and it may without exaggera- 
tion be said that hardly a Catholic man escaped the 
contagion. So universal a demonstration was felt to 
be irresistible. A sudden perception of the necessity 
for full and unqualified Emancipation sprang up in 
England. Even the Duke of Wellington bent his 
head before the storm. In the king's speech of 
February, 1829, a revision of the Catholic disa- 
bilities was advised. The following month the 
Catholic Relief Bill was carried through the House 



382 O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

of Commons by a majority of 180, and received the 
royal assent on the 13th of April. 

Thus the victory was won, and won too without a 
single shackling condition. It was won, moreover, by 
the efforts of a single individual, almost without sup- 
port, nay, in several cases against the active opposi- 
tion of some who had hitherto been its warmest advo- 
cates, a fact for which O'Connell's own violence was 
undoubtedly largely responsible. This seems to be 
the place to attempt an analysis of this extraordinary 
man, setting down the good and the evil each in 
their due proportion. The task, however, would in 
truth be impossible. For good or ill his figure 
is too massive, and would escape our half inch of 
canvas were we to try and set it there. The best 
description of him compressible in a few words is 
Balzac's — " He was the incarnation of an entire 
people." Nothing can be truer. Not only was he 
Irish of the Irish, but Celt of the Celts, every quality, 
every characteristic, good, bad, loveable, or the reverse 
which belongs to the type being found in him, only 
on an immense scale. To the average Irishman 
of his day he stands as Mont Blanc might stand 
were it set down amongst the Magillicuddy Reeks. 
He towers, that is to say, above his contemporaries not 
by inches, but by the head and shoulders. His aims, 
hopes, enthusiasms were theirs, but the effective, con- 
trolling power was his alone. He had a great cause, 
and he availed himself greatly of it, and to this and 
to the magnetic and all but magical influence of his 
personality, that extraordinary influence which he for 
so many years wielded is no doubt due. 




DANIEL O'CONNELL, t/[.V. 

{From a pen-and-ink sketch by Doyle, in the Department of Pritits 

and Drawings, British Museum. ) 



384 O* CON NELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

Two points must be here set down, since both are 
of great importance to the future of Ireland, and for 
both O'Connell is clearly responsible — -whether we' 
regard them as amongst his merits or the reverse. 
He first, and as it has been proved permanently, 
brought the priest into politics, with the unavoidable 
result of accentuating the religious side of the con- 
test and bringing it into a focus. The bitterness 
which three generations of the penal code had en- 
gendered only, in fact, broke out then. The hour 
of comparative freedom is often — certainly not alone 
in Ireland — the hour when the sense of past oppres- 
sion first reveals itself in all its intensity, and that 
biting consciousness of being under a social ban which 
grew up in the last century is hardly even yet extinct 
there, and certainly was not extinct in O'Connell's 
time. Another, and an equally important effect, is 
also due to him. He effectually, and as it has proved 
finally, snapped that tie of feudal feeling which, 
if weakened, still undoubtedly existed, and which 
was felt towards the landlord of English extraction 
little less than towards the few remaining Celtic ones. 
The failings of the upper classes of Ireland of his day, 
and long before his day,, there is no need to extenuate, 
but it must not in fairness be forgotten that what 
seems to our soberer judgment the worst of those 
failings — 'their insane extravagance, their exalted 
often ludicrously inflated notions of their own relative 
importance; their indifference to, sometimes open hos- 
tility to, the law — all were bonds of union and sources 
of pride to their dependants rather than the other 
way. It needed a yet stronger impulse — that of 



THE CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 385 

religious enthusiasm — to break so deeply rooted and 
inherent a sentiment. When that spark was kindled 
every other fell away before it. 

As regards England, unfortunately, the concession 
.of Emancipation was spoilt not merely by the sense 
that it was granted to force rather than to conviction, 
but even more to the intense bitterness and dislike with 
which it was regarded by a large proportion of Eng- 
lish Protestants. A new religious life and a new 
sense of religious responsibility was making itself 
widely felt there. The eighteenth century, with its 
easy-going indifferentism, had passed away, and one 
of the effects of this new revival was unhappily to 
reawaken in many conscientious breasts much of the 
old and half-extinct horror of Popery, a horror which 
found its voice in a language of intolerance and 
bigotry which at the present time seems scarcely con- 
ceivable. 

The years which followed were chiefly marked by 
a succession of efforts upon O'Coiinell's part to procure 
Repeal. An association which had been formed by 
him for this purpose was put down by the Government 
in 1830, but the next year it was reformed ufider a new 
name, and at the general election in 1831 forty mem- 
bers were returned pledged to support Repeal. The 
condition of Ireland was meanwhile miserable in the 
extreme. A furious tithe-war was raging, and many 
outrages had been committed, especially against tithe 
proctors, the class of men who were engaged in col- 
lecting the tax. Ribbon associations and other secret 
societies too had been spreading rapidly underground. 
Of such societies O'Connell was through life the im- 



386 O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

placable enemy. The events of 1798 and 1803 had 
left an indelible impression on his mind. The "United 
Irishmen," in his own words, " taught me that all 
work for Ireland must be done openly and above 
board." The end of the tithe struggle, however, was 
happily approaching. In 1838 an Irish Tithes Com- 
mutation Act was at last carried, and a land tax in 
the form of a permanent rent charge substituted. 

Repeal was now more than ever the question of the 
hour, and to Repeal henceforward O'Connell devoted 
his entire energies. In 1840 the Loyal National 
Repeal Association was founded, and a permanent 
place of meeting known as Conciliation Hall estab- 
lished for it in Dublin. 1841, O'Connell had early 
announced, would be known henceforward as the year 
of Repeal, and accordingly he that year left Eng- 
land and went to Ireland, and devoted himself there 
to the work of organization. A succession of monster 
meetings were held all over the country, the far-famed 
one on Tara Hill being, as is credibly asserted, at- 
tended by no less than a quarter of a million of people. 
Over this vast multitude gathered together around 
him the magic tones of the great orator's voice swept 
triumphantly ; awakening anger, grief, passion, delight, 
laughter, tears, at its own pleasure. They were 
astonishing triumphs, but they were dearly bought. 
The position was, in fact, an impossible one to 
maintain long. O'Connell had carried the whole 
mass of the people with him up to the very brink of 
the precipice, but how to bring them safely and suc- 
cessfully down again was more than even he could 
accomplish. Resistance he had always steadily 



IMPRISONMENT OF O'CONNELL. 387 

denounced, yet every day his own words seerned to be 
bringing the inevitable moment of collision nearer and 
nearer. The crisis came on October the 5th. A 
meeting had been summoned to meet at Clontarf, 
near Dublin, and on the afternoon of the 4th the 
Government suddenly came to the resolution of issu- 
ing a proclamation forbidding it to assemble. The 
risk was a formidable one for responsible men to run. 
Many of the people were already on their way, and 
only O'Connell's own rapid and vigorous measures in 
sending out in all directions to intercept them 
hindered the actual shedding of blood. 

His prosecution and that of some of his principal 
adherents was the next important event. By a Dub- 
lin jury he was found guilty, sentenced to two years 
imprisonment, and conveyed to prison, still earnestly 
entreating the people to remain quiet, an order which 
they strictly obeyed. The jury by which he had 
been condemned was known to be strongly biassed 
against him, and an appeal had been forwarded against 
his sentence to the House of Lords. So strong there, 
too, was the feeling against O'Connell, that little ex- 
pectation was entertained of its being favourably 
received. Greatly to its honour, however, the sen- 
tence was reversed and he was set free. His im- 
prisonment had been of the lightest and least onerous 
description conceivable; indeed was ironically described 
by Mitchell shortly afterwards as that of a man — 
"addressed by bishops, complimented by Americans, 
bored by deputations, serenaded by bands, comforted 
by ladies, half smothered by roses, half drowned in 
champagne." The enthusiasm shown at his release 



388 O'CONNELL AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 

was franfic and delirious. None the less those months 
in Richmond prison proved the death-knell of his 
power. He was an old man by this time ; he was 
already weakened in health, and that buoyancy which 
had hitherto carried him over any and every obstacle 
'never again revived. The "Young Ireland" party, 
the members of which had in the first instance been 
his allies and lieutenants, had now formed a distinct 
section, and upon rhe vital question of resistance were 
in fierce hostility to all his most cherished principles. 
The state of the country, too, preyed visibly upon his 
mind. By 1846 had begun that succession of disas- 
trous seasons which, by destroying the feeble barrier 
which stood between the peasant and a cruel death, 
brought about a national tragedy, the most terrible 
perhaps with which modern Europe has been con- 
fronted. This tragedy, though he did not live to see 
the whole of it, O'Connell — himself the incarnation of 
the people — felt acutely. Deep despondency took hold 
of him. He rehired, to a great degree, from public life, 
leaving the conduct of his organization in the hands 
of others. Few more tragic positions have been de- 
scribed or can be conceived than that of this old man 
— so loved, so hated, so reverenced, so detested — who 
had been so audaciously, triumphantly successful 
in his day, and round whom the shadows of night 
were now gathering so blackly and so swiftly. Des- 
pair was tightening its grip round the hearts of ail 
Irishmen, and it found its strongest hold upon the 
heart of the greatest Irishman of his age. Nothing 
speaks more eloquently of the total change of situa- 
tion than the pity and respectful consideration ex- 



DEATH OF O'CONNELL. 389 

tended at this time to O'Connell by men who only 
recently hid exhausted every possibility of vitupera- 
tion in abuse of the burly demagogue. In 1847 he 
resolved to leave Ireland, and to end his days in 
Rome. His last public appearance was in the House 
of Commons, where an attentive and deeply re- 
spectful audience hung upon the faultering and barely 
articulate accents which fell from his lips. In a 
few deeply moving words he appealed for aid and 
sympathy for his suffering countrymen, and left 
the House ; within a few months he had died at 
Genoa. Such a bare summary leaves necessarily 
whole regions of the subject unexplored, but, let the 
nnal verdict of history on O'Connell be what it may, 
that he loved his country passionately, and with an 
absolute disinterestedness no pen has ever been found 
to question, nor can we doubt that whatever else may 
have hastened his end it was the Famine killed him, 
almost as surely as it did the meanest of its victims. 




LVI. 



"YOUNG IRELAND." 



The camp and council chamber of the "Young 
Ireland " party was the editor's room of The Nation 
newspaper. There it found its inspiration, and there 
its plans were matured — -so far, that is, as they can 
be said to have been ever matured. For an emi- 
nently readable and all things considered a wonder- 
fully impartial account of this movement, the reader 
cannot do better than consult Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's 
" Four Years of Irish History," which has the immense 
advantage of being history taken at first hand, written 
that is by one who himself took a prominent part in 
the scenes which he describes. 

The most interesting figure in the party had, how- 
ever, died before those memorable four years began. 
Thomas Davis, who was only thirty at the time of his 
death in 1845, was a man of large gifts, nay, might 
fairly be called a man of genius. His poetry is, perhaps, 
too national to be appreciated out of Ireland, yet 
two, at least, of his ballads, " Fontenoy " and " The 
Sack of Baltimore," may fairly claim to compare with 
those of any contemporary poet. His prose writings, 
too, have much of the same charm, and, if he had no 



SMITH O^BRIEN. 391 

time to become a master of any of the subjects of 
which he treats, there is something infectious in the 
very spontaneousness and, as it were, untaught boyish 
energy of his Irish essays. 

The whole movement in fact was, in the first 
instance, a literary quite as much as a political one. 
Nearly all who took part in it — Gavan Duffy, John 
Mitchell, Meagher, Dillon, Davis himself — were very 
young men, many fresh from college, all filled with 
zeal for the cause of liberty and nationality. The 
graver side of the movement only showed itself 
when the struggle with O'Connell began. At first no 
idea of deposing, or even seriously opposing the great 
leader seems to have been intended. The attempt 
on O'Connell's part to carry a formal declaration 
against the employment under any circumstances 
of physical force was the origin of that division, and 
what the younger spirits considered " truckling to the 
Whigs " helped to widen the breach. When, too, 
O'Connell had partially retired into the background, 
his place was filled by his son, John O'Connell, the 
" Head conciliator," between whom and the " Young 
Irelanders " there waged a fierce war, which in the end 
led to the indignant withdrawal of the latter from 
the Repeal council. 

Before matters reached this point, the younger camp 
had been strengthened by the adhesion of Smith 
O'Brien, who, though not a man of much intellectual 
calibre, carried no little weight in Ireland. His age — 
which compared to that of the other members of his 
party, was that of a veteran — his rank and position as a 
county member, above all, his vaunted descent from 



392 " YOUNG IRELAND.'' 

Brian Boroimhe, all made him an ally and a convert to 
be proud of. Like the rest he had no idea at first of 
appealing to physical force, -however loudly an abstract 
resolution against it might be denounced. Resistance 
was to be kept strictly within the constitutional limits, 
'indeed the very year of his junction with this the 
extreme left of the Repeal party, Smith O'Brien's 
most violent proceeding was to decline to sit upon 
a railway committee to which he had been sum- 
moned, an act of contumacy for which he was ordered 
by the House of Commons into the custody of the 
Sergeant-at-Arms, and committed to an extemporized 
prison, by some cruelly declared to be the coal- 
hole. " An Irish leader in a coal-hole ! " exclaims 
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, indignantly, can more 
unworthy statement be conceived .'' " Regullus in a 
barrel, however," he adds, rather grandly, " was not 
quite the last one heard of Rome and its affairs ! " 

In Ireland matters were certainly sad enough and 
serious enough without any such serio-comic incidents. 
Famine was already stalking the country with giant 
strides, and no palliative measures as yet proposed 
seemed to be of the slightest avail. Early in January, 
1847, O'Connell left on that journey of his which 
was never completed, and by the middle of May 
Ireland was suddenly startled by the news that her 
great leader was dead. 

The effect of his death was to produce a sudden and 
immense reaction. A vast revulsion of love and reve- 
rence sprang up all over the country ; an immense 
sense of his incomparable services, and with it a 
vehement anger against all who had opposed him. 



yOHN MITCHELL. 393 

Upon the "Young Ireland " party, as was inevitable, 
the weight of that anger fell chiefly, and from the 
moment of O'Connell's death whatever claim they 
had to call themselves a national party vanished 
utterly. The men " who killed the Liberator " could 
never again hope to carry with them the suffrages of 
any number of their countrymen. 

This contumely, to a great degree undeserved, natu- 
rally reacted upon the subjects of it. The taunt of 
treachery and ingratitude flung at them wherever they 
went stung and nettled. In the general reaction of 
gratitude and affection for O'Connell, his son John 
succeeded easily to the position of leader. The older 
members of the Repeal Association thereupon rallied 
about him, and the'split between them and the younger 
men grew deeper and wider. 

A wild, impracticable visionary now came to play 
a part in the movement. A deformed misanthrope, 
called James Lalor, endowed with a considerable 
command of vague, passionate rhetoric, began to write 
incentives to revolt in The Nation, These growing 
more and more violent were by the editor at length pru- 
dently suppressed. The seed, however, had already sown 
itself in another mind. John Mitchell is described by 
Mr. Justin McCarthy as " the one formidable man 
amongst the rebels of '48 ; the one man who distinctly 
knew what he wanted, and was prepared to run any 
risk to get it." Even Mitchell, it is clear, would 
never have gone as far as he did but for the im- 
pulse which he received from the crippled desperado 
in the background. Lalor was, in fact, a monomaniac, 
but this Mitchell seems to have failed to perceive. To 



394 *' YOUNG IRELAND.'* 

him it was intolerable that any human being should 
be willmg to go further and to dare more in the cause 
of Ireland than himself, and the result was that after 
awhile he broke away from his connection with T/ie 
Nation, and started a new organ under the name of 
■The United Irishmen, one definitely pledged from the 
first to the policy of action. 

From this point matters gathered speedily to a head. 
Mitchell's newspaper proceeded to fling out challenge 
after challenge to the Government, calling upon the 
people to gather and to "sweep this island clear of the 
English name and nation." For some months these 
challenges remained unanswered. It was now, how- 
ever, " '48," and nearly all Europe was in revolution. 
The necessity of taking some step began to be evident, 
and a Bill making all written incitement of insur- 
rection felony was hurried through the House of 
Commons, and almost immediately after Mitchell 
was arrested. 

Even then he seems to have believed that the 
country would rise to liberate him. The country, 
however, showed no disposition to do anything of the 
sort. He was tried in Dublin, found guilty, sentenced 
to fourteen years' transportation, and a few days 
afterwards put on board a vessel in the harbour and 
conveyed to Spike Island, whence he was sent to 
Bermuda, and the following April in a convict vessel 
to the Cape, and finally to Tasmania. 

The other "Young Irelanders," stung apparently 
by their own previous inaction, thereupon rushed 
frantically into rebellion. The leaders — Smith 
O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and others — went about 



ARREST OF THE LEADERS- 395 

the country holding reviews of " Confederates," as 
they now called themselves, a proceeding which 
caused the Government to suspend the Habeas Corpus 
Act, and to issue a warrant for their arrest. A few 
more gatherings took place in different parts of the 
country, a few more ineffectual attempts were made 
to induce the people to rise, one very small collision 
with the police occurred, and then the whole thing 
was over. All the leaders in the course of a few days 
were arrested and Smith O'Brien and Meagher v/ere 
sentenced to death, a sentence which was speedily 
changed into transportation. Gavan Duffy was 
arrested and several times tried, but the jury always 
disagreed, and in the end his prosecution was aban- 
doned. The " Young Ireland " movement, however, 
was dead, and never again revived. 




LVIL 

THE FAlvilNE. 

All the time the earlier of the foregoing scenes were 
being enacted, the famine had been drawing its python 
grasp tighter and tighter around the unhappy island. 
The first symptoms of the dread potato disease showed 
themselves in the autumn of 1845, and even that year 
there was much suffering, though a trifle to what 
was to follow. Many remedies were tried, both to 
stop the blight and save the crops, but all alike proved 
unavailing. The next year the potatoes seemed to 
promise unusually well, and the people, with charac- 
teristic hopefulness, believed that their trouble was 
over. The summer, however, was very warm and wet^ 
and with August there came on a peculiarly dense 
white fog, which was believed by all who were in 
Ireland at the time to have carried the blight with it 
in its folds. Whether this was the case or not, there 
is no doubt that in a single fatal night nearly the 
whole potato crop over the entire country blackened, 
and perished utterly. Then, indeed, followed despair. 
Stupor and a sort of moody indifference succeeded 
to the former buoyancy and hopefulness. There 
was nothing to do ; no other food was attainable. 



GALWAY AND MAYO. 397 

The fatal dependence upon a single precarious crop 
had left the whole mass of the people helpless before 
the enemy. 

Soon the first signs of famine began to appear. 
People were to be seen wandering about ; seeking for 
stray turnips, for watercresses, for anything that would 
allay the pangs of hunger. The workhouses, detested 
though they were, were crammed until they could 
hold no single additional inmate. Whole families 
perished ; men, women, and children lay down in their 
cabins and died, often without a sign. Others fell by 
the roadside on their way to look for work or seek 
relief Only last summer, at Ballinahinch in Conne- 
mara, the present writer was told by an old man that 
he remembered being sent by his master on a message 
to Clifden, the nearest town, and seeing the people 
crawling along the road, and that, returning the same 
way a few hours later, many of the same people were 
lying dead under the walls or upon the grass at the 
roadside. That this is no fancy picture is clear from 
local statistics. No part of Ireland suffered worse 
than Galway and Mayo, both far more densely popu- 
lated then than at present. In this very region of 
Connemara an inspector has left on record, having to 
give orders for the burying of over a hundred and 
thirty bodies found along the roads within his own 
district. 

. Mr. W. E. Forster, who, above all other Englishmen 
deserved the gratitude of Ireland for his efforts during 
this tragic time, has left terrible descriptions of the 
scenes of which he was himself an eye-witness, espe- 
cially in the west. " The town of Westport," he tells 



398 THE FAMINE. 

US in one of his reports, " was itself a strange and 
fearful sight, like what we read of in beleaguered 
cities ; its streets crowded with gaunt wanderers, 
sauntering to and fro with hopeless air and hunger- 
struck look — a mob of starved, almost naked women 
around the poor-house clamouring for soup-tickets- 
Our inn, the head-quarters of the road engineer and 
pay clerks, beset by a crowd of beggars for work," 
In another place " the survivors," he says, " were 
like walking skeletons — the men gaunt and haggard, 
stamped with the livid mark of hunger ; the children 
crying with pain ; the women in some of the cabins 
too weak to stand. When there before I had seen 
cows at almost every cabin, and there were besides 
many sheep and pigs owned in the village. But now 
the sheep were all gone — all the cows, all the 
poultry killed — only one pig left ; the very dogs 
which had barked at me before had disappeared — no 
potatoes ; no oats." 

One more extract more piteous even than the rest : 
"As we went along our wonder was not that the 
people died, but that they lived ; and I have no 
doubt whatever that in any other country the mortality 
would have been far greater ; that many lives have 
been prolonged, perhaps saved, by the long appren- 
ticeship to want in which the Irish peasant had been 
trained, and by that lovely touching charity which 
prompts him to share his scanty meal with his 
starving neighbour." 

Of course all this time there was no lack of 
preventative measures. Large sums had been voted 
from the Treasury ; stores of Indian corn introduced ; 



EFFORTS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 399 

great relief works set on foot. An unfortunate 
fatality seemed, however, to clog nearly all these 
efforts. Either they proved too late to save life, 
or in some way or other to be unsuitable to 
the exigencies of the case. Individual charity, too, 
came out upon the most magnificent scale. All 
Europe contributed, and English gold was poured 
forth without stint or stay. Still the famine raged 
almost unchecked. The relief works established by 
the Government, with the best intentions possible, 
too often were devoted to the most curiously useless, 
sometimes even to actually harmful, objects. To 
this day " Famine roads " may be met with in the 
middle of snipe bogs, or skirting precipices where 
no road was ever wanted or could possibly be 
used. By the time, too, they were in full working 
order the people were, in many cases, too enfeebled 
by want and disease to work. For close upon the 
heels of the famine followed an epidemic hardly less 
fatal than itself. In the course of the two years 
that it raged over two hundred thousand people 
are said to have perished from this cause alone, and 
three times the number to have been attacked and 
permanently enfeebled by it. 

In 1849 a Relief Act was passed which established 
soup kitchens throughout the unions, where food 
was to be had gratis by all who required it. Long 
before this similar kitchens had been privately set 
on foot, and men and women had devoted them- 
selves to the work with untiring energy and the 
most absolute self-devotedness. Of these self-ap- 
pointed and unpaid workers a large number shared 



400 THE FAMINE. 

the fate of those whom they assisted. Indeed, it is 
one of the most singular features of the time that 
not only old, or feeble, or specially sensitive people 
died, but strong men, heads of houses — not regarded 
as by any means specially soft-hearted — raised, too, 
by circumstances out of reach of actual hunger, died 
— ^just as O'Connell had died — of sheer distress of 
mind, and the effort to cope with what was beyond 
the power of any human being to cope with. In the 
single county of Galway the records of the times 
show — as may easily be verified — an extraordinary 
number of deaths of this type, a fact which alone 
goes far to disprove those accusations of heartlessness 
and indifference which have in some instances been 
too lightly flung. 

After the famine followed ruin — a ruin which swept 
high and low alike into its net. When the poor rate 
rose to twenty and twenty-five shillings in the pound 
it followed that the distinction between rich and 
poor vanished, and there were plenty of instances 
of men, accounted well off, who had subscribed 
liberally to others at the beginning of the famine, 
who were themselves seeking relief before the 
end. The result was a state of things which has left 
bitterer traces behind it than even the famine itself 
The smaller type of landowners, who for the most 
part had kindly relations with their tenants, were 
swept away like leaves before the great storm, their 
properties fell to their creditors, and were sold by 
order of the newly established Encumbered Estates 
Courts. No proposing purchaser would have any- 
thing to say to estates covered with a crowd of 



WHOLESALE EMIGRATION, 4OI 

pauper tenants, and the result was a wholesale 
clearance, carried out usually by orders given by 
strangers at a distance, and executed too often with 
a disregard of humanity that it is frightful to read 
or to think of. Most of the people thus ejected in 
the end emigrated, and that emigration was under 
the circumstances their best hope few can reasonably 
doubt. Even here, however, misfortune pursued 
them. Sanitary inspection of emigrant ships was at 
the time all but unheard of, and statistics show that 
the densely crowded condition of the vessels which 
took them away produced the most terrible mortality 
amongst the already enfeebled people who crowded 
them, a full fifth of the steerage passengers in many 
cases, it is said, dying upon the voyage, and. many 
more immediately after landing. The result of 
all this has been that the inevitable horrors of the 
time have been deepened and intensified by a sense 
of ill-usage, which has left a terrible legacy behind 
^one which may prove to be a peril to genera- 
tions still unborn. Even where those who emigrated 
have prospered most, and where they or their sons 
are now rich men, they cling with unhappy per- 
sistency to the memory of that wretched past— a 
memory which the forty years which have intervened, 
far from softening, seem, in many cases, to have only 
lashed into a yet more passionate bitterness. 

In Ireland itself the permanent effects of the disaster 
differed of course in different places and with different 
people, but in one respect it may be said to have 
been the same everywhere. Between the Ireland of 
the past and the Ireland of the present the Famine 



402 THE FAMINE. 

lies like a black stream, all but entirely blotting out 
and effacing the past. Whole phases of life, whole 
types of character, whole modes of existence and 
ways of thought passed away then and have never 
been renewed. The entire fabric of the country 
was torn to pieces and has never reformed itself upon 
the same lines again. After a while every- day 
life began again of course, as it does everywhere 
all over the world, and in some respects the struggle 
for existence has never since been quite so severe 
or so prolonged. The lesson of those two terrible 
years has certainly not been lost, but like all such 
lessons it has left deep scars which can never be 
healed. Men and women, still alive who remember 
the famine, look back across it as we all look back 
across some personal grief, some catastrophe which 
has shattered our lives and made havoc of every- 
thing we cared for. We, too, go on again after a 
while as if nothing had happened, yet we know 
perfectly well all the while that matters are not the 
least as they were before ; that on the contrary they 
never can or will be. 




LVIII. 

THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

The story of the last forty years must be com- 
pressed into a nutshell. The famine was over at 
last, but its effects remained. Nearly a million of 
people had emigrated, yet the condition of life for 
those remaining was far from satisfactory. The 
Encumbered Estates Act, which had completed the 
ruin of many of the older proprietors, pressed, in some 
respects, even more severely upon the tenants, a 
large number of whom found themselves confronted 
with new purchasers, who, having invested in Irish 
land merely as a speculation, had little other interest 
in it. In 1850 an attempt at a union of North and 
South was made, and a Tenant League Conference 
assembled in Dublin. Of this league the remnants of 
the "Young Ireland" party formed the nucleus, but 
were supplemented by others with widely different 
aims and intentions. Of these others the two Sadleirs, 
John and James, Mr. Edmund O'Flaherty, and Mr. 
William Keogh, afterwards Judge Keogh, were the 
most prominent. These with their adherents con- 
stituted the once famous " Brass Band " which for 
several years filled Parliament with its noisy decla- 



404 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

mations, and which posed as the specially appointed 
champion of Catholicism. In 1853 several of its 
members took office under Lord Aberdeen, but their 
course was not a long one. A bank kept in Ireland 
by the two Sadleirs broke, ruining an enormous 
nlimber of people, and on investigation was found 
to have been fraudulently conducted from the very 
beginning. John Sadleir thereupon killed himself; 
his brother James was expelled from the House of 
Commons, and he and several others implicated in 
the swindle fled the country and never reappeared, 
and so the " Brass Band " broke up, amid the well- 
deserved contempt of men of every shade of political 
opinion. 

After this succeeded a prolonged lull. Secret 
agitations, however, were still working underground, 
and as early as 1850 one known as the Phoenix 
organization began to collect recruits, although for 
a long time its proceedings attracted little or no 
attention. 

In 1859 several of its members were arrested, and 
it seemed then to die down and disappear, but some 
years later it sprang up again with a new name, and 
the years 1866 and 1867 were signalized by the 
Fenian rising, or to put it with less dignity, the 
Fenian scare. With the close of the American 
War a steady backward stream of Americanized 
Irishmen had set in, and a belief that war between 
England and America was rapidly approaching 
had become an article of fervent faith with a large 
majority in Ireland. The Fenian plan of operation 
was a two-headed one. There was to be a rising m 



THE FENIANS. 405 

Ireland, and there was to be a raid into Canada 
across the American frontier. Little formidable as 
either project seems now, at the time they looked 
serious enough, and had the strained relations then 
existing between England and America turned out 
differently, no one can say but what they might have 
become so. The Fenian organization, which grew 
out of the earlier Phoenix one, was managed from 
centres, a man called Stephens being the person 
who came most prominently before the world in the 
capacity of Head centre. In 1865 Stephens was 
arrested in Dublin, but managed to escape not long 
afterwards from Richmond prison by the aid of two 
confederates within its walls. The following May, 
1866, a small body of Fenians crossed the Niagara 
river, but the United States authorities rigidly en- 
forced the neutrality of the American frontier, and so 
the attempt perished. The same spring a rising 
broke out in Ireland, but it also was stamped with 
failure from its onset, and the famous snowstorm 
of that year finished the discomfiture of its ad- 
herents. 

Two other Fenian demonstrations, not to mention 
an abortive project to seize Chester Castle, were 
shortly afterwards made in England. In 1867, some 
Fenian prisoners were rescued in Manchester, while on 
their way to gaol, and in the attempt to burst the 
lock of the van in which they were being conveyed 
a police officer named Brett, who was in charge of it, 
was accidentally shot. Five men were found guilty 
for this offence. One Macquire was proved to have, 
been arrested by mistake, another Conder had the 



406 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

sentence commuted, but three — Allen, Larkin, and 
O'Brien — were hung. 

Another Fenian exploit of a somewhat different 
character followed in December, 1867, when an 
attempt was made by some desperados belonging 
to the party to blow up the Clerkenwell House of 
Detention, in which two Fenian prisoners were then 
confined. Luckily for them, as it turned out, they 
were not in that part of the prison at the time, or 
the result of their would-be liberators' efforts would 
have simply been to kill them. As it was, twelve 
other people were either killed on the spot or died 
from its effects, and over a hundred were more or 
less badly wounded. For this crime six persons were 
put upon their trial, but only one was convicted and 
actually executed. 

The next Irish event of any moment stands upon 
a curiously different platform, though there were not 
wanting suggestions that the two had an indirect con- 
nection as cause and effect. In 1868 the Liberal party 
came into power after the General Election with Mr. 
Gladstone as Prime Minister, and the session of 1869 
saw the introduction of a Bill for the Disestablishment 
of the Irish Church. The controversies to which that 
measure gave rise are already quite out of date, and 
there is no need therefore to revive them. Few 
measures so vehemently opposed have produced less 
startling effects in the end. It neither achieved those 
great things hoped by its supporters, nor yet brought 
about the dire disasters so freely threatened by 
its opponents. To the Roman Catholics of Ireland 
the grievance of an alien State Church had, since the 



DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 407 

settlement of the tithe question, lapsed into being 
little more than a sentimental one, so that practically 
the measure aiTected them little. As an institution; 
however, the position of the Irish State Church 
was undoubtedly a difficult one to defend, the very 
same arguments which tell most forcibly for the 
State Church of England telling most forcibly 
against its numerically feeble Irish sister. What- 
ever the abstract rights or wrongs of the case it is 
pretty clear now that the change must have come 
sooner or later, and few therefore can seriously regret 
that it came when it did. The struggle was pro- 
tracted through the entire session, but in the end 
passed both Houses of Parliament, and received the 
royal assent on July 26, 1869. 

It was followed early the following year by the 
Irish Land Act, which was introduced into the House 
of Commons by Mr. Gladstone on February 15, 1870. 
This Act has been succinctly described as one 
obliging all landlords to do what the best landlords 
did spontaneously, and this perhaps may be accepted 
as a fairly accurate account of it. Owing to the fact 
of land being practically the only commodity of 
value, there has always been in Ireland a tendency to 
offer far more for it than could reasonably be hoped 
to be got in the form of return, and this tendency has 
led, especially in the poorest districts and with the 
smallest holdings, to a rent being offered and ac- 
cepted often quite out of proportion to the actual 
value of the land, though in few instances do the 
very highest rents attainable seem even in these cases 
to have been exacted. The Act now proposed was 



4o8 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

to abolish one passed in i860 which had reduced all 
tenant and landlord transactions in Ireland to simple 
matters of free contract, and to interpose the authority 
of the State between the two. It legalized what were 
known as the "Ulster customs;" awarded compen- 
sations for all improvements made by the tenant or 
his predecessors, and in case of eviction for any cause 
except non-payment of rent a further compensation was 
to be granted, which might amount to a sum equal to 
seven years' rent ; it also endeavoured to a partial 
extent to establish peasant proprietorship. That it 
was a conscientious attempt to deal with a very 
intricate and perplexing problem may fairly be con- 
ceded, at the same time it has, been its misfortune 
that it proved satisfactory to neither of the two classes 
chiefly concerned, being denounced by the one as the 
beginning of spoliation, by the other as a mere worth- 
less, and utterly contemptible attempt at dealing with 
the necessities of the case. 

A third measure — the Irish Education Act — was 
proposed the following session, but as it resulted in 
failure, was popular with no party, and failed to pass; 
it need not be entered into even briefly. 1874 saw a 
dissolution of Parliament and a General Election, 
which resulted in the defeat of the Liberals, and the 
return of the Conservatives to office. Before this, a 
new Irish constitutional party pledged to the principle 
of Home Government, had grown up in the House 
of Commons, at first under the leadership of Mr. 
Butt, afterwards with new aims and widely different 
tactics under that of Mr. Parnell. In 1879 an 
agrarian movement was set on foot in Ireland, chiefly 



THE LAND LEAGUE. 409 

through the instrumentality of Mr. Davitt, which has 
since become so widely known as the Land League. 
It was almost immediately joined by the more ex- 
treme members of the Irish Parliamentary party. 
Meetings were held in all directions, and an amount 
of popular enthusiasm aroused which the more 
purely political question had never succeeded in 
awakening. Subscriptions poured in from America. 
A season of great scarcity, and in some districts of 
partial famine, had produced an unusual amount of 
distress, and this and the unsettled state of the Land 
Question all helped to foster the rising excitement. 
The country grew more and more disturbed. Several 
murders and a nurjiber of agrarian outrages were 
committed, and the necessity of strengthening the 
hands of the executive began to be felt by both the 
chief political parties alike. 

In 1880 the Liberal party returned to power after 
the General Election, and 1881 witnessed the passage 
through Parliament of two important Irish measures. 
The first of these was a Protection of Life and Pro- 
perty Bill brought in in January by Mr. Forster, then 
Chief Secretary of Ireland. As was to be expected, 
this was vehemently opposed by the Nationalist mem- 
bers, who retarded it by every means in their power, 
one famous sitting of the House on this occasion lasting 
for forty-two hours, from five o'clock on the Monday 
afternoon to nine o'clock on the Wednesday following, 
and then only being brought to an end by the authority 
of the Speaker. By March, however, the Bill passed, 
and in the following month, April 7th, a new Irish 
Land Act was brought forward by Mr. Gladstone, and 



410 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

was passed after much opposition the following 
autumn. 

The full scope and purport of this Act it is far 
beyond the limits of these few remaining pages to enter 
upon. Although, to some extent an outcome of 
the Act of 1870, it cannot in strictness be called 
a mere development or completion of it, being in 
many respects based upon entirely new principles. 
The most salient of these are what are known as 
the " three Fs," namely — Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, 
to be decided by a Land Court, and Free Sale. 
As regards the last two, it has been pointed out 
with some force that the one practically does 
away with the other, the only person benefited 
being the immediate occupier, at whose departure 
that fierce competitive desire for the land which is 
the real root of the whole difficulty being allowed 
freer play than ever. With regard to the first, its 
effect may be briefly stated as that of reducing the 
owner to the position of a rent charger or annuitant 
upon what had before been his own estate, thereby 
depriving him — even where want of means did not 
effectually do so — of all desire to expend capital upon 
what had henceforth ceased to be his property, and 
over the management of which he had almost wholly 
lost control. That this is a change of a very large 
and sweeping character it is needless to say. Hence- 
forward ownership of land in Ireland is no longer 
ownership in the ordinary sense of the word. It is an 
ownership of two persons instead of one, and a divided 
ownership, even where two people work together 
harmoniously, is as most of us are aware, a very 



ARREST OF MR. PARNELL. 411 

difficult relationship to maintain, and is apt to be 
followed sooner or later by the effacements of the 
rights of one or the other. How these diverging 
rights are finally to be adjusted is at this moment 
the problem of problems in Ireland, and still im- 
peratively awaits solution. 

In October of the same year, 1881, Mr. Parnell, 
Mr. Davitt, and other principal members of the Land 
League, were arrested by order of the Governm.ent, 
and lodged in Kilmainhan gaol, an event announced 
the same evening by Mr. Gladstone at the Guildhall 
banquet The following May the Liberal Govern- 
ment resolved however, rather suddenly, to reverse 
their previous policy, and the Irish leaders were set 
at liberty. About the same time Lord Cowper and 
Mr. Forster, the Lord-Lieutenant and Chief Secretary, 
resigned, and were replaced by Lord Spencer and 
Lord Frederick Cavendish, who arrived in Ireland 
avowedly upon a mission of conciliation. 

The day of their arrival — May 6, 1882 — has been 
made only too memorable to the whole world by the 
appalling tragedy which took place the same evening 
in the Phoenix Park, where Lord Frederick and 
Mr. Burke, the Under Secretary, while walking 
together in the clear dusk, were murdered by 
a party of miscreants, who escaped before any sus- 
picion of what had occurred had been aroused, even 
in the minds of those who had actually witnessed 
the struggle from a distance. For many months no 
clue to the perpetrators of the deed was discoverable, 
and it seemed to be only too likely to be added to 
the long list of crimes for which no retribution has 



412 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

ever been exacted. Happily for Irish credit this 
was not the case, and six months later, in the month 
of January, 1883, a series of inquiries carried on 
in Dublin Castle led to the arrest of no less than 
seventeen men, all of whom were lodged in prison 
and bail for them refused. Amongst these was 
a man of somewhat higher social standing than 
the rest, a tradesman, and member of the Dublin 
Council, the notorious James Carey, who not long 
afterwards turned Queen's evidence, and it was 
njainly through his evidence, supplemented by that 
of two others, that the rest of the gang were con- 
victed. At the trial it was proved that the murder 
of Lord Frederick Cavendish had formed no part of 
the original scheme, and had m.erely arisen acci- 
dentally out of the circumstance of his having joined 
Mr. Burke, who, upon the resignation of Mr. Forster, 
the Chief Secretary, had been selected by the In- 
vincibles as their next victim. Conviction was with- 
out difficulty obtained against all the prisoners, and 
five were shortly afterwards hanged, the remainder 
receiving sentence of penal servitude, either for life 
or long periods. 

Carey's own end was a sufficiently dramatic one. 
He was kept in prison, as the only way of ensuring 
his safety until means could be found to get him out 
of the country, and was finally shipped some months 
later to the Cape. On his way there he was shot 
dead by a man called O'Donnell, who appears to 
have gone out with him for the purpose. His 
fate could certainly awaken no pity in the most 
merciful breast. By his own confession not only 



THE QUESTION OF EVICTION. 413 

had he to a great degree planned the murder and 
helped to draw the others into it, but had actually 
selected the very weapon by which it was accom- 
plished, so that of all the miscreants engaged in the 
perpetration he was perhaps the deepest dyed and 
the most guilty. 

Since then, and indeed all along, the struggle in 
Ireland itself has been almost wholly an agrarian one. 
The love of and desire for the land, rather than 
for any particular political development, is what 
there dominates the situation. A heavy fall of 
prices has led to a widespread refusal to pay rent, 
save at a considerable abatement upon the already 
reduced Government valuations. Where this has 
been refused a deadlock has set in, rents in 
many cases have not been paid at all, and eviction 
has in consequence been resorted to. Eviction, 
whether carried out in West Ireland or East London, 
is a very ugly necessity, and one, too, that is in- 
delibly stamped with a taint of inhumanity. At 
the last extremity, it is, however, the only one 
open to any owner, g7ia owner, let his political sym- 
pathies or proclivities be what they may, so that it 
does not necessarily argue any double portion of 
original sin even on the part of that well-laden pack- 
horse of politics — the Irish landlord — to say that 
his wits have not so far been equal to the task of 
dispensing with it. 

Within the last two years only one question has 
risen to the surface of politics which gravely affects 
the destinies of Ireland, but that one is of so vast 
and all-important a character that it cannot be 



414 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

evaded. The question I mean, of course, of Home 
Rule. Complicated as its issues are, embittered as 
the controversy it has awakened, dark still as are 
its destinies, its history as. a piece of projected, 
and so. far unsuccessful, legislation has at least the 
merit of being short and easily stated. In the month 
of December, 1885, just after the close of the general 
election, it began to be rumoured as forming part of 
the coming programme of the Liberal leader. On 
April 8, 1886, a Bill embodying it was brought 
forward in the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone ; 
upon June 7th, it was rejected upon the second 
reading by a majority of thirty, and at the general 
election which followed was condemned by a large 
majority of the constituencies. 

And afterwards } What follows ? What is its 
future destined to be } Will it vanish away, will it 
pass into new phases, or will some form of it even- 
tually receive the sanction of the nation .'' Thes-e are 
Sphinx questions, which one may be excused from 
endeavouring to answer, seeing that the strongest 
and most far-reaching heads are at this moment 
intent upon them — not, so far as can be seen, with 
any strikingly successful result. The Future is a deep 
mine, and we have not yet struck even a spade into it. 

In every controversy, no matter how fierce the 
waves, how thick the air with contending assertions, 
there is almost always, however, some fact, or some 
few facts, which seem to rise like rocks out of the 
turmoil, and obstinately refuse to be washed or 
whittled away. The chief of these, in this case, is 
the geographical position, or rather juxtaposition, of 



HOME RULE. 415 

the two islands. Set before a stranger to the whole 
Irish problem — if so favoured an individual exists 
upon the habitable globe — a map of the British 
islands, and ask him whether it seems to him inevit- 
able that they should remain for ever united, and we 
can scarcely doubt that his reply would be in the 
affirmative. This being so, we have at least it will 
be said one fact, one sea-rock high above the reach 
of waves or spray. But Irishmen have been declared 
by a great and certainly not an unfavourable critic — 
Mr. Matthew Arnold — to be " eternal rebels against 
the despotism of fact." If this is so — and who upon 
the Irish side of the channel can wholly and abso- 
lutely deny the assertion i* — then our one poor standing- 
point is plucked from under our feet, and we are all 
abroad upon the waves again. Will Home Rule or 
would Home Rule, it has been asked, recognize this 
fact as one of the immutable ones, or would it sooner 
or later incline to think that with a little determina- 
tion, a little manipulation, the so-called fact would 
politely cease to be a fact at all ? It is difficult to 
say, and until an answer is definitely received it does 
not perhaps argue any specially sloth-like clinging to 
the known in preference to the unknown to admit 
that there is for ordinary minds some slight craning 
at the fence, some not altogether unnatural alarm as 
to the ground that is to be found on the other side 
of it. "Well, how do you feel about Home Rule 
now that it seems to be really coming ? " some one 
inquired last spring, of an humble but life-long 
Nationalist. " 'Deed, sir, to tell the truth, I feel as if 
I'd been callino; for the moon all me life and was told 



4l6 THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT. 

it was coming down this evening into me back gar- 
den ! " was the answer. It is not until a great change 
is actually on top of us, till the gulf yawns big and 
black under our very eyes, that we fully realize what 
it means or what it may come to mean. The old state 
of things, we then begin to say to ourselves, was really 
very inconvenient, very trying to all our tempers and 
patience, but at least we know the worst of it. Of 
the untravelled future we know nothing. It fronts 
us, with hands folded, smiling blankly. It may 
be a great deal better than we expect, but, on the 
other hand, it may be worse, and in ways, too, which 
as yet we hardly foresee. Whatever else Home 'Rule 
may, would, could, or should be, one thing friends 
and foes alike may agree to admit, and that is 
that it will mark an entirely new departure — a de- 
parture so new that no illustration drawn from the 
last century, or from any other historical period, is of 
much avail in enabling us to picture it to ourselves. 
It will be no resumption, no mere continuation of 
anything that has gone before, but a perfectly fresh 
beginning. A beginning, it may be asked, of what? 




LIX. 



CONCLUSION. 



"Concluded not completed," is the verdict of 
Carlyle upon one of his earHer studies, and " con- 
cluded not completed," conscience is certainly apt to 
mutter at the close of so necessarily inadequate a 
summary as this. Much of this inadequacy, it may 
fairly be confessed, is individual, yet a certain amount 
is also inherent in the very nature of the task itself. 
In no respect does this inadequacy press with a more 
penitential weight than in the case of those heroes 
whose names spring up at intervals along our pages, 
but which are hardly named before the grim neces- 
sities of the case force us onwards, and the hero and 
his doings are left behind. 

Irish heroes, for one reason or another, have come 
off, it must be owned, but poorly before the bar of 
history. Either their deeds having been told by 
those in whose eyes they found a meagre kind- 
ness, or else by others who, with the best intentions 
possible, have so inflated the hero's bulk, so pared 
away his merely human frailties, that little reality 
remains, and his bare name is as much as even 
a well-informed reader pretends to be acquainted 



4lS CONCLUSION. 

with. Comparing them with what are certainly their 
nearest parallels — the heroes and semi-heroes of Scotch 
history — the contrast strikes one in an instant, yet 
there is no reason in the nature of things that this 
should be. Putting aside those whose names have 
got somewhat obscured by the mists of the past, and 
putting aside those nearer to us who stand upon what 
is still regarded as debateable ground, there- are no' 
lack of Irish names which should be as familiar to the 
ear as those of any Bruce or Douglas of them all. 
The names of Tyrone, of James Fitzmaurice, of 
Owen Roe O'Neill, and of Sarsfield, to take only a 
few and almost at random, are all those of gallant 
men, struggling against dire odds, in causes which, 
whether they happen to fit in with our particular sym- 
pathies or not, were to them objects of the purest, most 
genuine enthusiasm. Yet which of these, with the 
doubtful exception of the last, can be said to have 
yet received anything like a fair meed of apprecia- 
tion ? To live again in the memory of those who 
come after them may not be — let us sincerely hope 
that it is not — essential to the happiness of those who 
are gone, but it is at least a tribute which the living 
ought to be called upon to pay, and to pay moreover 
ungrudgingly as they hope to have it paid to them 
in their turn. 

Glancing with this thought in our minds along that 
lengthened chronicle here so hastily over-run, many 
names and many strangely-chequered destinies rise up 
one by one before us ; come as it were to judgment, to 
where we, sitting in state as " Prince Posterity," 
survey the varied field, and judge them as in our 



CONCLUSION. 



419 



wisdom we think fit, assigning to this one praise, to 
that one blame, to another a judicious admixture of 
praise and blame combined. Not, however, it is to 
be hoped, forgetting that our place in the same 
panorama waits for another audience, and that the 
turn of this generation has still to come. 





AUTHORITIES. 



Adamnan, " Life of St. Columba " {trans.). 

Arnold (Matthew), " On the Study of Celtic Literature." 

Bagwell, " Ireland under the Tudors." 

Barrington (Sir Jonah), " Personal Recollections," " Rise and 

Fall of the Irish Nation." 
Brewer, " Introduction to the Carew Calendar of State Papers." 
Bright (Rt. Hon. J.), "Speeches." 
Burke (Edmund), " Tracts on the Popery Laws," " Speeches 

and Letters." 

Carlyle, " Letters and Speeches of Cromwell." I 

Carew, " Pacata Hibernia." 

Cloncurry, " Life and Times of Lord Cloncurry." 

Clogy, " Life and Times of Bishop Bedell." 

Cornwallis Correspondence. 

Croker (Rt. Hon. W.), " Irish, Past and Present." 

Davis (Thomas), " Literary and Historical Essays." 

Davies (Sir John), "A Discoverie of the True Causes why 

Ireland was never Subdued." 
Dennis, " Industrial Ireland." 
Domenach (Abbe), " Larerte Erinn." 
Dymock (John), "A Treatise on Ireland." 
Duffy (Sir Charles Gavin), " Four Years of Irish History." 

Essex, " Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of." 



422 AUTHORITIES. 

Froude (J. A.), " History of England," " The English in 
Ireland." 

Giraldus Cambrensis, " Conquest of Ireland," Edited by J. 
Dimock, Master of the Rolls Series, 1867 ; "Topography 
of Ireland," Edited by J. Dimock, Master of the Rolls 
Series, 1867. 

Green, " History of the English People." 

Grattan, " Life and Speeches of Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan." 

Halliday, " Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin." 
Hennessy (Sir Pope), "Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland." 
Hardiman, " History of Galway." 
Howth (Book of), from O'Flaherty's " lar Connaught." 

Joyce, " Celtic Romances." 

Kildare (Marquis of), " The Earls of Kildare.' 

Lodge, " Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica." 

Lecky, "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," 

and " Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland." 
Leland, " History of Ireland." 

Maine (Sir H.), " Early History of Institutions," " Village 

Communities, East and West." 
Max Miiller's Lectures. 
M'Gee (T. Darcy), " History of Ireland." 
McGeoghegan, " History of Ireland." 
Mitchell (John), " History of Ireland." 
Montalembert, " Monks of the West." 
Murphy (Rev. Denis), " Cromwell in Ireland." 
Madden, " History of Irish Periodical Literature." 
McCarthy (Justin), " History of Our Own Times." 

O'Connor (T. P.), "The Parnell Movement." 
O'Flaherty, " lar Connaught." 

Petty (Sir W.), " Political Anatomy of Ireland." 
Petrie (Dr.), " Round Towers of Ireland." 



AUTHORITIES. 



423 



Prendergast, "Tory War in Ulster," "The Cromwellian Settle- 
ments," 

Richey (A. G.), " Lectures on the History of Ireland." 

Smith (Goldwin), " Irish History and Irish Character." / 
Spenser (Edmund), "View of the State of Ireland." 
Stokes (Miss), "Early Christian Architecture of Ireland." 
Stokes (Professor George), " Ireland and the Celtic Church." 

Tone (Wolfe), " Autobiography.'' 

Vere de (Aubrey)., " Queen Meave and other Legends of the 
Heroic Age," and " Legends of St. Patrick." 

Walpole, " Kingdom of Ireland." 
Webb (Alfred), "Compendium of Irish Biography." 
Wilde (Sir W.), " Lough Corrib," and " The Boyne and the 
Blackwater." 

Young (Arthur), " Tour in Ireland." 





INDEX. 



Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 359 

Act of Supremacy, 152 

Act of Uniformity, 278 

Adamnan, 43 

Adare, 188 

Affane, battle of, 183 

Aidan (Saint) and Irish monk, 45 

Alcansar, battle of, 184 

Allen, an Irish priest, 184 

Allen, hill of, 14 

Allen, John, Archbishop of Dub- 
lin, 146 

Allen, the Fenian prisoner, 406 

Andrews, Dean of Limerick, 237 

Angareta, mother of Giraldus, 78 

Angelsea, settlement of, 67 

Anglo-Norman invasion, 76 

Annals of Lough Ce, 109 

Anselm (Saint), Archbishop of 
Canterbury, 81 

Arctic hare, the, 4 

Ard-Reagh, or Over-king, 91 

Ardscul, battle of, 108 

Arklow Head, 93 

Armagh, Book of, 33 

Armagh, cathedral of, burnt by 
Thorgist, 55 

Armdu, a Viking, 68 

Arran, isles of, 38 

Art McMurrough, or Art Kava- 
nagh, 119 ; master of Leinster, 
119; has recourse to Black- 
rent, 123 ; entertained by 
Richard II., 120 ; knighted, 
120 ; thrown into prison, 120 ; 



released, 120 ; he hastens to 
Meath, 12 1 ; defeats the royal 
army, 121 ; he again meets 
Richard II. in battle, t2i ; 
victorious, 123 

Ascendency, the Protestant, 307 

Ashton, Sir Arthur, a royalist 
officer, 261 

Askeaton, castle of, 187 ; de- 
stroyed, 188 

Association, Loyal National Re- 
peal, 386 

Attainder, Bill of, drawn and 
passed, 287 

Athenry, battle of, no; en- 
feebled state, 175 

Athlone, fortress of, 104, 292 

Athy, bridge of, 128 

Aughrim, battle of, 293 

Augustine (Saint), 44 

D'Aguilar, Don Juan, 215 

D'Avaux, Count, envoy to 
James II., 283 



B 



Baculum Cristatum, or Staff of 

St. Patrick, 158 
Baggotrath, battle of, 260 
Bagnall, Sir Henry, 198 ; Tyrone 
marries his sister, 201 ; becomes 
his enemy, 201 ; he marches 
against Tyrone, 204 ; he is shot, 
205 ; his army defeated, 205 ; 
fort of Blackwater surrendered, 
205 



426 



INDEX. 



Ballinasloe, town of, 293 
Baltimore, stronghold of pirates, 

127 
Baltinglass, Lord, 189 
Bannockburn, battle of, 108 ; its 

effects on Ireland, 108 
Bannow, bay of, or "FitzStephen's 

stride," 83 
Barnabie FitzPatrick, 157 
Barries descendants of Nesta, 76 
Barri, Robert de, 83 
Barrington's Bridge, 107 
Barrymore, Lord, 141 
Beare O'Sullivan, 215 
Bedell, bishop of Kilmore, 245 
Beltane, Celtic festival of ist May, 

14 

Belgic, colony of, 6 
Bellingham, Sir Edward, 162 
^Behath, castle of, 141 
Ben Edar, now Howth, 17 
Benignus, first disciple of St. 

Patrick, 35 
Benturb, battle of, 255 
Bermingham, Sir John de, victor 

of Athenry, no, in 
Beresford, Chief Commissioner of 

Customs, 351 
Bernard, Saint, of Clairvaux, 81 
Betas, Celtic houses of hospitality, 

14 
Black-rent, use of, 119, 123, 129 
Blackwater river, 183 ; battle of, 

203 
Blaney, Mr., member for Mona- 

ghan, 243 
Book of Aicill, Aryan law, 25 
Book of Armagh, 33 
Book of Howth, the, 140 
Borough, Lord, deputy, 203 ' 
Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, 

304> 320 
Boyle, primate, 280 
Boyne, battle of the, 288 
Bramhall, primate, 277 
" Brass Band," 403 
Brehons, judges or law makers, 

19, 25 
Brian Boru, or Bortima, 60, 61 ; 

he defeats the Danes, 61 ; seizes 



throne of Cashel, 63 ; over -runs 
Leinster, 63 ; subdues Ossory, 
63 ; attacks Meath, 63 ; burns 
the stronghold of Tara, 63 ; 
becomes Ard-Reagh in Mala- 
chy's place, 63 ; he is called 
Brian of the Tribute, 64 ; he 
becomes master of Ireland, 64 ; 
his victory at Clontarf, 66 ; he 
marches against Brodar, 68, 69 ; 
is killed, 69 ; mourned and 
buried, 69, 70. 
Bridget (Saint), 47 ; sacred fire of, 

47 
Brodar, a Viking, 66 ; killed Brian, 

67 

Brown, Archbishop of Meath, 159; 
deprived, 161 

Bruce, Edward, in Ireland, 107 ; 
battle of Bannockburn, 108 ; its 
effects, 108 ; Bruce lands at 
Carrickfergus, 108 ; defeats 
Richard de Burgh, 108 ; defeats 
Sir Edmund Butler at Ardscul, 
108 ; victorious at Kells, 108 ; 
meets his brother, 108 ; is 
crowned king, 109 ; devastates 
the country, 109 ; defeated and 
killed at Dunkalk, 1 10 

Bruce, King Robert of Scotland, 
108 

Burren, district of the, in North 
Clare, 269 

Burgh, Sir William FitzAld elm de, 
103 

Burgundy, Duchess of, 132, 136 

Burke, Edmund, 330 

Biirke, Mr. Thomas, murder of, 
411 

C 

Calvagh O'Donnell, 167 

Camden, Lord (Lord-Lieutenant), 
359 

Campion, historian, the, 125 

Carew, Sir George, 213, 215, 2i6<, 
226 

Carew, Sir Peter, 178 ; his atroci- 
ties, 178 

Carey, James, the informer, 412 

Carhampton, Lord, 358 



INDEX. 



427 



Carle Cannteson, 67 

Carlow, 154 

Carneg, rock of, 84 

Carnot, 355 

Catholic Confederacy, 249 

Catholic ReUef Bill carried, 381 

Cashel, Synod of, 92 

Castlehaven, 215 

Castlereagh, Lord, Chief Secre- 
tary, 370 

Caulfield, Lord, Governor of 
Charlemont, 243 

Cavan, Lord, 365 

Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 
murdered, 411 

Cerd or Nuad of ' ' the Silver 
hand," 9 

Charlemont, Lord, 330 

Charles I., accession, 231 ; he 
sends Strafford to Ireland, 231, 
235, 238 ; his death, 279 

Chester Castle, attack on, pro- 
jected, 405 

Chesterfield, Lord, Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 344 

Claims, Court of, 275 

Clan Nairn, 17 

Clann Dichin, a malediction, 20 

Clanricarde, Earl of, 105 

Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 114 

Cliach, plains of, 14 

Clocthech, round towers of, 56 

Clogher, Bishop of, 241 

Clonard, town of, 47 

Clonmacnois, high altar at, 47 

Clonmel, 262 

Clontarf, battle of, 71, 74 ; strand 
of, 66 

Clyn, Franciscan historian, 109 

Cole, Dean of St. Paul's, story of, 
163 

Cole, Sir William, Governor of 
Enniskillen, 243 

Coleraine, 243 

Colkilla, hill of, 14 

Colman, Bishop, 46 

Columba (Saint), born, 43 ; his 
character, 42, 43 ; he leaves 
Ireland, 43 ; visits Scotland, 
43 ; and lona, 44 



Connaught, landowner's case of, 
230 

Connaught, treaty of, 103 

Connemara, anciently lar Con- 
naught, 8 

Conciliation Hall, 386 

Confederates, Young Irelanders, 

395 
Con O'Neill (Earl 01 Tyrone) 154 
Cong, plains of, 7 
Conyers, Clifford, Sir, Governor of 

Connaught, 209 
Cooke, Under-Secretary of State, 

351 

Coote, Sir Charles, 244, 246, 273 

Cork, town of, 119 

Cormac, MacArt, 23 

Cormac O'Conn, King, il 

Cornwallis, Marquis, Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 365 

Corrib Lough, 104 

Covvper, Lord, 41 1 

" Coyne and livery," 183 

Croagh Patrick, mountain of, 34 

Crofty, hill of, 247 

Crom a Boo, war cry of the Fitz- 
geralds, 138 

Cromwell, Henry, Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 76 

Cromwell in Ireland, 261 ; he 
takes Drogheda, 261 ; Wex- 
ford, 262 ; Kilkenny, 262 ; Clon- 
mel, 262 ; his army sickens, 
263 ; Ireland under his rule, 
264 ; the struggle continues, 
264 ; Limerick and Galway 
yield at last, 264 ; close of civil 
war, 265 ; his methods, 266 ; 
Catholic evictions, 267 ; his 
treatment of Sir Phelim O'Neill, 
Lord Mayo, and Lord Mus- 
kerry, 267 ; his death, 272 

Crint, or stringed harp, 52 

Cruachan, mountain of, 35 

Curragh of Kildare, 14 

D 

Danaans, tribe of, 8 
Danes, 53 
Danes, Dublin, 67 



428 



INDEX. 



Danes of Limerick, 58-61 

Dangen, ancient name of Phillips- 
town, 162 

Dashda, or Druid chieftain, 53 

Davis, John, Sir, 95-117; he is 
elected Speaker, 227 ; quarrel 
which followed, 227, 228 

Davis, Thomas (poet), 290 

Davitt, Michael, Mr., 409 

Declaration ot Rights by Grattan, 
320 

Declaratory, Act of George I., 
322 

"Defenders," Association of, 345 

Delvin, Lord, 191 

Dermot McMurrough, King of 
Leinster, 83 

Derry, town of, 171 

Desmond, Earl of, taken to Lon- 
don, 176 ; vacillates about re- 
belling, 185 ; his death, 192 

Desmond-Sugane or Straw, Earl 
of, 200 

Dillon, Mr., 391 

Donald, Chief of Ossory, 90 

Donegal, chapels in, 43 

Donore, hill of, 280 

Douchad, son of O'Brien, 74. 

Dowdal, Archbishop of Armagh, 

159 

Downpatrick, town of, 99 
Drapier Papers by Swift, 317 
Drogheda, Parliament of, 138 
Drogheda, taken by Cromwell, 261 
Dublin Castle, 240 ; plot to seize 

it, 241 ; frustrated, 242 
Dublin, Philosophical Association 

of, 311 
Dublin, Society of, 311 
Duffy, Sir Charles Gavin, 390 
Dundalk, battle of, no 
Dungannon, Matthew, Baron of, 

165 
Dunsany, Lord, 247 



Edgecombe, Sir Edward, 135 
Edward, I., 107 

Edward II., 108 ; Battle of Ban- 
nockburn, 108 



Edward III., 113; he summons 
landowners, 114; appoints 
Lionel, Duke of Clarence, vice- 
roy, 1 14 ; Statute of Kilkenny is 
passed, 115 
Elizabeth, Queen, 165 ; entertains 
Shane O'Neill at Court, 68; 
account of his visit, 168; Ireland 
during her reign, 171-172 
Emmett, Robert, 376 
Emmett, Thomas Addis, 354 
Encumbered Estate Court, 400 
Enniskillen, town of, 247 
Eochaidh king, tale of, 35 
Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 
206 ; take the command in 
Ireland, 208 ; proceeds against 
Tyrone, 208; his disasters, 208; 
takes Cahir Castle, 208 ; meets 
Lugane Earl, 208 ; meets Ty- 
rone at Lagan, 209 ; returns to 
England, 210 
Eva, daughter of Dermot, 86 
Everard, Sir John, 227, 228 



Falkland, Lord, 231 

Famine, the first symptoms of, 
396 ; great distress, 397 ; Mr. 
Forster reports, 397 ; Reliei Act 
passed, 399 ; the ruin which 
followed it, 400 ; after effects, 

403 

Fedlim O'Connor, king of Con- 
naught, 108 

Fenian prisoners, rescue of, at 
Manchester, 405 

Fenian rising, 401 

Fenni or Fenians, II 

Fercal, tribes of, 161 

Ferns, town of, 83 

Finn, McCumal, 14 

Finn or Fingal, father of Ossian, 
II 

Finnvarragh, king of the fairies, 
21 

Firbolgs, race of, 6 

Fitton, Sir Edward, 176 

Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 354-359 

Fitzgerald, Maurice, 83 



INDEX. 



429 



Fitzgerald, Mr., member for 

Clare, 380 
Fitzgerald, Raymond (le Gros), 

85 

Fitzgerald, Sir James, 191 

Fitzgerald, Sir John, 191 

FitzHenry, Robert and Meiler, 
sons of Nesta, 76 

Fitzmaurice, Lady, 188 

Fitzmaurice of Lexnaw, III 

Fitzmaurice, Sir James, 178 ; 
breaks into rebellion, 178 ; re- 
lations between him and Sir 
James Perrot, I79; burns Kil- 
mallock 179 ; marches into 
Ulster, 179 ; burns Athlone, 
179; joins the Mac-an-Earlas, 
180; lays Gal way waste, 180; 
crosses the Shannon, 180 ; sur- 
renders and takes the required 
oaths at Kilmallock, 180 ; sails 
to France, 180; returns, 184; 
his death, 187 

FitzSimons, Walter, Archbishop 
of Dublin, 137 

FitzStephen, Robert, 83 

FitzUrse of Louth, III 

Fitzwilliam, Lord, Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 349-350 

Fitzwilliam, Sir William, Lord- 
deputy, 199 

Flood, Rt. Hon. Henry, 323 

Foltbar and Feradach, Legends, 
16 

Formorians, race of, 5 

Forster, Mr. W. E., 397 

Forty-shilling Freeholders, Bill of, 

349 
" Four Masters," the annals of 

the, 9 
Foyle, Lough, 165 
Freeman'' s Journal, 322 
Fuidhar, or "broken man," 28 



Gall (Saint), 36 

Gal way, bay and town of, 104 

Galway, Jury of, 247 

George, Duke of Clarence, 129 



Gerald de Barri, Gerald of Wales, 
or Giraldus Cambrensis, 78 ; 
grandson of Nesta, 78 ; priest 
and chronicler, 78 ; his cha- 
racter as a writer, 78 

Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, son 
of Geroit Mor, 130 

Gerald of Windsor, husband to 
Nesta, 76 

Geraldines, loi ; Giraldus' opinion 
of them, loi ; ancestors of Earls 
Kildare and Desmond, 102 ; 
important position, 102 ; their 
keep at Maynooth, 102 ; power 
in Ireland, 102 ; Geroit Mor, 
or Gerald the Great, 7th Earl 
of Kildare, 130 

Gilbert, Sir Humphry, 179 

Gilla Dacker and his horse, 
legend of, 14 

Ginkel, Dutch general of Wil- 
liam HI., 291 

Gladstone, Mr. W. E., 406 ; dis- 
established the Irish Church, 
406 ; introduced Irish Land Act 
of 1870, 407; of 1881, 409; 
imprisoned members of Land 
League, 411 ; proposed measure 
of Home Rule of 1886, 414 

Glenmama near Dunlaven, b% 

Godred, King of Man, 87 

Gormanstown, Lord, 249 

Granard, Lord Justice, 280 

Grattan, Henry, 328 ; his loyalty 
and patriotism, 328 ; he enters 
Parliament, 330; his eloquence, 
330 ; Declaration of Rights, 
330 ; retires into private life, 
332; protests against the Union, 
332 ; member of English Par- 
liament, 332 ; his death and 
burial, 333 

" Great Darcy of Flatten," 132 

Gregory, Pope, 44 

Grey, de Wilton, Lord -deputy, 
189 

Grey, Leonard, Lord, Deputy, 

I5i> 152 
Griffiths, Sir Richard, Irish geo- 
logist, 312 



430 



INDEX. 



H 

Habeas Corpus Act, 351 
Hadrian IV., Pope, 81 
Hamilton, Sir Richard, 282 
Harcourt, Lord, 325 
Hardi, French General, 365 
Harvey, Bagenal, United Irishman 

and general of the rebels, 363 
Hasculph, Danish Governor, 86- 

Hatton, Sir Christopher, " an 

Undertaker," 194 
Heber and Heremon, sons of 

Milesius, 10 
Hoadly, Archbishop of Armagh, 

320 
Hoche, General, 355 
Hoche, vessel called the, 365 
Home Rule, the question of, 44 
Howth, Earl of, 134, 136 
Humbert, French general, 364 
Hy-Nial, or royal house of O'Neil, 

42, 52 

I 

lar Connaught, mountains of, 104 
Ireland, Primeval, i ; its early 
vicissitudes, 3 ; South European 
plants in, 5 ; early history of, 
5-11; its legends, 13-21; Celtic 
Ireland, 23 ; early laws of, 26- 
29 ; St. Patrick's visit to, 32 ; 
the Northern scourge of, 50 ; 
invasion by Anglo-Normans, 
76; King John in, 98-100; 
invasion of, by Edward Bruce, 
107; Richard II. visits to, 119; 
attempt to force Protestantism' 
upon, 158-160; Molyneux's, 
"The case of," &c., 313; 
Union of Great Britain and 
Ireland, 367-376 
Ireland, the future of, 413 
" Ireland, Young," party, 390- 

.395 
Irish Catholic Association, 407 
Irish Celts, 25 
Irish Church, disestablishment of, 

409 
Irish Education Act, 408 



Irish elk, 4 

Irish export of woollen goods for- 
bidden, 309 
Irish famine, 396-403 
Irish hare, 4 
Irish heroes, 418 
Irish Land Act, 407 
Irish volunteers, 336-340 
Inchiquin, Lord, 256 
lona, 44 

J 

James II. recalls Lord Ormond, 
280 ; restores Catholics to office, 
280 ; his treatment of Protes- 
tants, 281-282 ; his flight to 
France, 282 ; arrives in Ireland, 
283 ; his reception, 284 ; be- 
sieges Londonderry, 285 ; goes 
to Dublin, 286 ; is defeated at 
the battle of the Boyne, 288 ; 
his flight, 289 

John, the Mad Berserker-warrior, 

87 
Jones, Michael, Colonel, 259 
Jones, Paul, pirate, 326 
Joyce's, Mr., " Celtic Romances," 

13 

K 

Kelts, battle of, 99 

Keogh, Judge, 403 

Kerry, defence of, 215 

Kerry, plants and animals in, 5 

Kildare, Dean of, 149 

Kildare, house of, 102 ; earls of, 
130, 134, 150; "Silken 
Thomas," 147 ; vice-deputy, 
147 ; renounces allegiance to 
England, 147 ; takes Dublin, 
148 ; burns Trim and Dunboyne, 
149; is defeated, 150; im- 
prisoned and hanged, 150 

Kilkea, castle of, 144 

Kilkenny, castle of, 105 

Kilkenny, statutes of, 115 

Killala, Bishop of, 365 

Kilmallock burnt, 179 : church 
of, 179 

Kimbaoth, prince of Milesia, 10 



INDEX. 



431 



King's County, 52 
Kinsale, harbour of, 215 
Knights of Glyn, 102 ; of Kerry, 

102 
Knockma, a hill of, 8 
Knocktow, battle of, 144 ; cause 

of, 106 



Lacy, Hugo de, viceroy of Henry 
H., 92 

Lagan, ford of, 209 

Lalor, James, 393 

Lambay, stand of, 55 

Lambert, Simnel, 331 ; received 
in Dublin and crowned, 134; 
defeated at Stoke, 135 ; taken 
prisoner and appointed turn- 
spit, 135 

Land League, the, 409 

Land Lepers, 53, 59 

Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 81 

Langan, Comte de, 288 

Laoghaire, King of Meath, 34 

Larkin, Fenian hanged, 406 

Lecky's, Mr., '" History of the 
Eighteenth Century," 300 

Lee, Captain, 199 

Leix, X.owm of, 161 

Leland the historian, 10 

Liffy river, 87 

Lilibullero, anti-Catholic song, 

.283. 
Limerick, articles of, 295 
Limerick, first siege of, 291 
Limerick, treaty of, 295 
Limerick, wood and town of, 

."7 

Lindsfarne, peninsula of, 45 
Londonderry, siege of, 285 
Lovell, Lord, 135 
Lucas, Charles, 323 
Luinagh Tyrlough, 195 
Lundy, governor of Londonderry, 
285 

M 

Mac-an-Earlas, sons of Clanri- 
carde, 191 



Macarthy, Colonel, 288 
McCarthy, Dermot, 90 
Maccumactheneus, St. Patrick's 

chronicler, 34 
Magan, betrayer of Lord Edward 

Fitzgerald, 361 
Maguire, Lord, 241 
Mahon, King of Munster, 61 
Malachy or Melachin,Ard-Reagh, 

52 
Maiby, Sir Nicolas, governor of 

Connaught, 187 
Mananan MacLir, Legend of 

Gilla Backer, 17 
Marshall, William, Earl of Pem- 
broke, 103 
Maryborough anciently Campa, 162 
Mary, Queen of England, 163 ; 

her death, 164 
Maynooth, castle of, 102 
Mayo, Lord, 267 
Mayo mountains, 8 
Maxwell, Colonel, 362 
McGeoghan, Abbe, historian, i 
McGillapatrick, Lord of Upper 

Ossoy, 168 
McHugh, 191 
McMahon, Hugh, chief of Mona- 

ghan, 192 
McMurrough, Dermot, King of 

Leinster, 83, 241 
McMurrough, son of Dermot, 83 
McToole, Sir Owen, 197 
McWilliam, Burke of Galway, 154 
McWilliam Lighter, and Mc- 
William Oughter, the Nether 
and Further Burkes, III 
McWilliam of Clanricarde, 142 
Meagher, 391 
Meath, plains of, 8 
Mila de Cogan, Norman governor 

of Dublin, 87 
Milcho chieftain, 3 
Milesians or Scoti, 9, 10 
Mitchell, John, 391 
Molyneux, Thomas, Dr., 31 1 
Molyneux, William, the "In- 
genious Molyneux," 311 
Montalembert, M. de,40 
Montmorency, Henry de, 85 



432 



INDEX. 



Mortimer, Roger, viceroy, no 

Mountgarrett, Lord, 249 

Mountjoy, Charles Blount, 211 ; 
his character, 211 ; establishes 
military stations, 213 ; de- 
feats by starvation, 213; defeats 
Tyrone and the Spanish fleet, 
216 

Moytura, prehistoric battle of the 
southern, 7 

Muckern, or Mulkearn noi, 187 

Mullingar, town of, 292 

Munroe, General, 255 

Murhertach, house of, 74 

Murphy, Father John, 362 

Murphy, Father Michael, 304 



N 

Nation, The, newspaper, 390 
Neil Grey, 167 

Newtown Butler, battle of, 288 
N orris, General Sir Henry, 206 
Norris, Sir Thomas, 194 
Norsmen, or Northmen, or Danes, 

7. 53-56 
Northern Star, newspaper, 358 
Nuad, King of the Tuatha-da- 

Danaans, 7-9 

O 

" Oakboys," Society of the, 345 

O'Brian, Prince of Thomond, 90 

O'Brien, race of, 60 

O'Brien, Smith, 391 

O'Brien, the Fenian, 406 

O'Byrnes, 128 

O'Carroll of Argial, 91 

O'Connell, Daniel, makes his first 
speech, 379 ; his energy, 379 ; 
sets on foot the Irish Catholic 
Association, 379 ; carries Catho- 
lic rent, 380 ; contests the 
county of Clare, 381 ; his 
character, 382; his efforts to 
procure repeal, 385 ; his en- 
mity to secret societies, 385 ; 
founds the Loyal National 
Repeal Association, 386 ; his 



prosecution, 387 ; found guilty 

and imprisoned, 387 ; his last 

appearance and death, 389 
O'Connell, John, 391 
O'Connor, Roderick, the Ard- 

Reagh, 75, 84-91 
O'Connors of Connaught, 74 
Octennial Bill, the, 325 
O'Curry, 53 

O'Dogherty, Sir John, 198 
O'Donnel, Calvagh, 167 
O'Donnel, of Tyrconnel, 167 
O'Donnell, Hugh, or Red Hugh, 

200. 
O'Donnel), murder of Carey, 412 
O'Donnell, Rory, 221 
O'Donovans, 63 
O'DriscoU's piratical clan of West 

Cork, 27 
O'Dynor, Dermot, or Dermot ol 

the Bright Face, 17 
O'Flaherty, Edmund, 403 
Oilen-an-Oir, or Gold Island, 185 
OUamhs or Sennachies, head 

bards, 19 
O'Lochlin of House of O'Neill, 

74 

O'Moore, Rory or Roger, 241 

O'Neill, Owen, 248 

O'Neill, Shane, called the Proud, 
165; his character, 166; his 
eloquence, habits, and morals, 

166 ; his encounter with Sussex, 

167 ; his visit to the English 
Court, 168 ; receives title of 
Captain of Tyrone, 169 ; re- 
turns to Ireland, 169 ; Sussex 
attempt to poison him, 169 ; 
his descent on the Scots, 170, 
and on Connaught, 170 ; his 
last disaster and death, 172, 

173 

O'Neill, Sir Phelim, 241 
O'Neills, or Hy-Nials, 60-74 
Orange Lodges, institution of, 345 
O'Reilly of Brefny, 167 
O'Rorke, chieftain of Connaught, 

O'Rorke of Brefny, chieftam of 
Leinster, 91 



INDEX. 



433 



Ormond, house of, 105-128 
Ossian, poet and bard, II-35 
Ossory, clan of, 84 
Oswald, King of Northumbria, 

44 

Oswin, King of Northumbria, 46 

O'Toole, Garrot, 191 

O'Toole, St. Lawrence, Arch- 
bishop of Dublin, 86 

Oulart, hill of, 362 

Owel, Lough, near Mullingar, 
55 



Paladius, missionary, 33 

Parnell, Mr., 411 

Parnell, Sir John, 371 

Parsons, Sir William, 242 

Patrick (Saint), his birth, 33 ; 
lands in Ireland, 33 ; visits 
to Meath and to Connaught, 
Antrim, and Armagh, 34 ; 
legends of, by Mr. Aubrey de 
Vere, 35 

" Peep of Day Boys," Society of, 

345 
Pelham, Sir William, Lord-deputy, 

188 
Penal Code, the, 300 
Perkin Warbeck, 136, 137 
Perrot, Sir John, 176-179 
Peter's Pence, collection of, 79 
Petrie, George, LL.D., 7 
Petty, Sir William, his survey of 

Ireland, 271 
Philip II., King of Spain, 183 
Phoenix organization, 404 
Phoenix Park tragedy, 41 1 
Picts, 53 

Pierce, Captain, 173 
Plunkett, Dr., Archbishop of 

Dublin, 279 
Portland, Duke of, 350 
Poynings' Act, 138 
Poynings' Act repealed, 287 
Poynings, Sir Edward, 148 
Preston, Colonel, 249 
Protection of Life and Property 

Bill, 409 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1 90-1 91 

Rents, Black, 17, 123 

Rents, Fair Rent and Free Sale, 
410 

Rents, Rack, 28 

Rents, Stipulated, 28 

Ribbon Association, 385 

Richard 11. lands at Waterford, 
119; his meeting with Art 
McMurrough, 119 ; entertains 
the chiefs, 120; receives their 
oaths of allegiance, 120 ; returns 
to Ireland, 122 ; encounters Art 
McMurrough, 122 ; leaves Ire- 
land, 123 

Rupert, Prince, 259 ; his arrival 
at Kinsale, 259 



Sadleirs, John and James, 403 
Sanim Celtic Festival (November 

1st), 14 
Sarsfield, Patrick, 280 
Saunders, Pope's Legate, 184 
Schomberg, Duke of, 288 
Schwartz, Martin, Dutch General, 

135 
Scoti, tribes of the, 9 
Scullobogue, barn of, 363 
Sebastian, King of Portugal, killed 

at the battle of Alcansar, 184 
Senchus Mor, ancient law-book, 

25, 28 
Shannon, Lord, 322 
Shannon, river, 91 
Shiel, Richard Lalor, 379 
Sidney, Henry, Sir, 174; be- 
comes Lord-deputy, 174 ; ap- 
points presidents in the pro- 
vinces, 176 ; his scheme for 
reducing expenses, 177 ; his 
visits to Munster and Con- 
naught, 179 
Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, 66 
Silvermine hills of Tipperary, 291 
Simon, priest and tutor to Lam- 
bert Simnel, 135 



434 



INDEX. 



Sitric, a Viking, 67 
Skeffington, Sir William, 148 
Slemish mountains, 33 
Sligo, town of, 254 
Smerwick, town of, 185 
Somerset, Edward Earl of Gla- 
morgan, 254 
South European Plants in Ireland, 

S 
Southern Moytura, 7 
Spanish Armada, 197 
Spenser, Edmund, poet, 190 
Stanihurst, historian, the, 131 
Steel boys. Society of, 345 
St. John, Sir Oliver, deputy, 231 
St. Leger, SirWareham, "Under- 
taker," 194 
St. Ruth, General, 292 
Stephen, Head Fenian centre, 405 
Stokes, battle of, 135 
Stokes, Miss Margaret, 312 
Stone, Archbishop of Armagh, 

320 
Strafford, Went worth, in Ireland, 
232 ; orders subsidy of;^ioo,oco, 
234 ; he overawes the juries, 
234 ; his character, 235 ; his 
suppression of the woollen trade, 
235 ; founds the linen trade, 235 ; 
clears the sea of pirates, 235 ; 
sets a Court of High Commission 
to work, 237 ; his treatment of 
Archbishop Ussher, 237 ; his 
account of his dealings with 
Convocation, 237 ; his return to 
England, 239 ; tried for treason, 
condemned, and executed, 239 ; 
effect of his death in Ireland, 

239 

Strangford LoiTgh, 33 

Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, 
82 ; his marriage with Eva, 86 ; 
takes Waterford, 86; is besieged 
in Dublin, 87 ; flees to Water- 
ford, 88 ; thence to England, 88 ; 
meets Henry, 88 ; and returns 
to Ireland, 89 

Stukeley, Thomas, Sir, 170, 184 

Sukost, battle of, 61 

Surrey, Earl of, deputy, 145 



Swift, Jonathan, . Dean of St. 
Patrick's, 315 ; his character, 
315; his Drapier Papers, 317; 
his attack on Wood's patent, 
315 ; his popularity, 319 

Swords in Meath, 247 



Talbot, Richard, Earl of Tyrcon- 

nel, 208 
Tanist laws of succession, 27 
Tara in Meath, 63 ; battle of, 63 
Tenant League Confederation, 403 
Tenure, Fixity of, 410 
Thomond, Lady, 303 
Thomond, Lord, 247 
Tower, the "Tower Earl" of 

Desmond, 192 
Townshend, Lord, 325 
To Vinton, battle of, 129 
Tuam, Arcnbishop of, 254 
Tuatha-da-Danaans, race of, 7 
Turgesius or Thorgist, 55 
Turlough, grandson of Brian, 82 
Tyrconnel, Lady, 289 
Tyrconnel, Richard, Earl of, 280 
Tyrconnel, Rory O'Donnell, Earl 

of, 221 
Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of, 
199 ; receives his title from 
Elizabeth, 199 ; contrasted with 
Shane, 199 ; his religious views, 
200 ; arbitrary arrest of his 
brother-in-law, 200; marries 
Bagnall's sister, 201 ; prepares 
for rebellion, 202 ; assumes the 
title of the O'Neill, 202; is 
victorious over Bagnall, 205 ; 
meets Essex at Lagan, 209 ; 
struggle with Mountjoy, 214; 
he hurries south to meet the 
Spaniards, 215 ; encounters 
Mountjoy and is defeated, 216 ; 
reported plot against England, 
220 ; flies the country, 221 ; dies 
in exile, 222 

U 
Union, Pitt's plan of, 268 
, Union, the, 367 



INDEX. 



435 



United Irishmen newspaper, 394 
United Irishmen, the Society of, 

386 
Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, 

1.63 ; treatment of by Strafford, 

237 

V 

Vere, Aubrey de, Mr., Legends of 

St. Patrick, 35 
Vinegar Hill, 363 
Volunteers, Irish, the, 334-340 

W 

Ware Papers, 163 

Waterford, town of, 262 ; defence 

of, 86 ; Danes of, 85 ; Richard 

II. lands at, 122 
Wexford,' town of, 83 ; castle of, 

87 ; siege by Cromwell, 262 
Whitby, Synod of, 46 
Whiteboys, outrages of, 342-344 
Wicklow, landing of St. Patrick 

in, 33 
William of Orange in Ireland, 



288 ; he lands at Carrickfergus, 
288 ; meets James's army, is 
victorious at the battle of the 
Boyne, 289 ; offers free pardon, 
290 ; besieges Limerick, 291 ; 
his evidence about the treaty of 
Limerick, 296 

Willoughby, Sir Francis, Governor 
of Dublin, 246 

Winter, Admiral, 187 

Wolfe, Tone, 354 ; leader of 
United Irishmen, 354 ; meets 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 
Paris, 355 ; his scheme of de- 
scent, 355 ; descent fails, 357 ; 
a fresh attempt, 358 ; again 
fails, 361 ; is arrested on board 
the Hoche, 361 ; condemned 
and dies in prison, 366 

Wood, patentee of halfpence, 317 

Y 

Yellow Ford, battle of the, 203 
"Young Ireland," party of, 388, 
390 




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The Story of the Nations. 



Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a 
graphic manner the stories of the different nations that 
have attained prominence in history. 

In the story form the current of each national life will 
be distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy 
periods and episodes will be presented for the reader in 
their philosophical relation to each other as well as to 
universal history. 

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to 
enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them 
before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and 
struggled — as they studied and wrote, and as they amused 
themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with 
which the history of all lands begins, will not be over- 
looked, though these will be carefully distinguished from 
the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted 
historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. 

The subjects of the different volumes will be planned 
to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive 
epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will 
present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in 
the great Story of the Nations ; but it will, of course 



not always prove practicable to issue the several volumes 
in their chronological order. 

The '' Stories" are printed in good readable type, and 
in handsome i2mo form. They are adequately illustrated 
and furnished with maps and indexes. They are sold 
separately at a price of $1.50 each. 

The following is a partial list of the subjects thus far 
determined upon : 

THE STORY OF *ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. George Rawlinson. 

" *CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin, 

" *GREECE. Prof. James A. Harrison, 

Washington and Lee University. 

" *R0ME. Arthur Oilman. 

"(^*THE jews. Prof. James K. Hosmer, 

Washington University of St. Louis, 

" *CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church, 

University College, London. 

" BYZANTIUM. 

" THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 

" *thE NORMANS. Sarah O. Jewett. - 

" *PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

" *SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 

" *GERMANY. S. Baring Gould. ._.... 

" ^THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 

" HOLLAND. Prof. C. E. Thorold Rogers. 

" *NORWAY. HjALMAR H. Boyesen. 

" *THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" *HUNGARY. Prof. A. VAmbery. 

" THE ITALIAN KINGDOM. W. L. Alden. 
" " EARLY FRANCE. Prof. Gustave Masson. 

" ^ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy. 

" CTHE HANSE towns. Helen Zimmern. 

" *ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

" *THE SARACENS. Arthur Oilman. 

" TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
" •' PORTUGAL. H. Morse Stephens. 

" MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

" *IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

" PHCENICIA. 

" SWITZERLAND. 

" RUSSIA. 

" WALES. 

" SCOTLAND. 
* (The volumes starred are now ready, December, 1887.) 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York London 

27 AND 29 West Twenty-third Street 27 King William Street, Strand 



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